| 
 You
might have noticed that I haven't tended to pay much attention to contest surfers
of the female persuasion. This is not due to rampant sexism on my part (hell,
some of my best friends are women!), it just that women's pro surfing has always
been so dull. I'm not expecting Pancho-esque power, but I don't think a solid
precise style and a decent amount of ticker are unreasonable asks. With maybe
a handful of exceptions, women's pro surfing has been marred by lack of imagination
and aggression, poor technique and surfers who haven't had the guts to throw themselves
over the edge when it mattered. Women achieve this in plenty of other sports,
so why not surfing?
 For
me, the Sunset Beach Roxy Pro, the penultimate women's WCT event, may have marked
a watershed for our pro-surfing sisters.
Pleasing was the
number of competitors prepared to risk it all in pursuit of the win. Sunset is
a challenging, heavy arena, and while this was not maxed out, life-threatening
Sunset, it still had some pretty sharp teeth. The sight of girl after girl getting
bitch slapped by Sunset lips had me, I must admit, tingling all over. This
was great of course, but of much greater importance was the flowering of someone
who just could be the first truly great female surfer.  When
Kelly Slater entered the pro ranks all those decades ago, he was said to have
been amazed at just how lacklustre the top rank surfing of the day actually was,
and the way that he messianically manhandled the tour into its brave new world
is documented history. At the top level, Slater showed us that our sense of the
possible was far too narrow, and surfing hasn't been the same since. The women
may have found their Slater.
This year, and this contest in
particular, Stephanie Gilmore, a nineteen year old kid from the North Coast backwater
of Kingscliff, has shown that if the stark contrast between men's and women's
surfing is a gender divide, it's a divide that can be bridged. Stephie is a genuinely
exciting surfer, not just good for a girl, but good period. Technically excellent
(you can tell that she's schooled herself on Fanning's razor slick brilliance),
imaginative and powerful, smiling and self possessed, strong as a bullock and
afraid of nothing, she will change women's surfing beyond all recognition. She
didn't win here (Mel Bartels edged her out in the finals when she failed to back
up a great wave early on), and she's only competing this year courtesy of WCT
wildcards, but she is without a scintilla of doubt the best female surfer on the
planet. Short of being taken out by the proverbial bus, the world title she wins
next year will be the first of many, and our daughters will follow her in droves.
A far better role model than Paris Hilton, I think. | 
