Five-time world champion surfer Carissa Moore was the first woman to receive a gold medal surfing in the 2020 Olympics. This year she announced that she would be stepping away from competitive surfing to start a family with her husband. What fans didn't know was that she had another surprise announcement that she didn't reveal during the 2024 Olympics - that she was already pregnant with her first child!
Moore and her husband Luke Untermann announced their pregnancy in late August after Moore had returned home to Hawai'i. They shared the baby's due date: February 2025, putting Moore in the middle stage of her first trimester when she was competing in the Olympics in the heavy surf of Teahupo'o. Surfing in the Olympics while in her first trimester of pregnancy further proves Moore's strength and the incredible fortitude of women.
Moore and Untermann are high school sweethearts and married in 2017. Together they'll be starting a new chapter in life as Moore steps away from the professional surfing career that she's been committed to since childhood.
Moore and Untermann's pregnancy was welcome news to the professional surfing community, who congratulated the couple on Instagram, including Caroline Marks, Bethany Hamilton, and Joanne Defay.
A woman shifting her life priorities in order to start a family isn't rare. When women become first-time mothers or welcome a new child to their family, it's common for them to take maternity leave, scale back working hours, and make arrangements to work from home.
It's a big change for any working woman; intentionally making the decision to slow down their career. Even when the reward is epic, like having a baby and starting a family with the one we love, we can have mixed thoughts and feelings about spending less time on our careers and achievements.
Our professions are something we have dedicated ourselves to, invested in, and developed our skills to succeed. No one knows that better than Carissa Moore. Since the time she was a little grom, Moore knew she wanted to be a professional surfer - one of the greatest surfers in the world!
She dedicated her mind, body, and soul to her surfing career, and her commitment and passion paid off with five world titles and a gold medal in the 2020 Olympics. But who will she be without fighting for her next win?
In an interview with the New York Times, Moore said, "All those wins, the competitive part that's so much of my identity, I'm taking that away, and I'm facing myself this year, and that's scary. Like, who am I? Am I going to OK? Will I be able to love myself and think that I'm worthy without this?"
Moore knew that Untermann was the love of her life, and the two married while Moore continued to compete on the World Surfing League Tour, traveling around the world for the better part of the year. Moore commented that her husband had wanted to start a family years ago, but was supportive of Moore continuing to compete as a professional surfer.
Moore isn't the first professional surfer to become a mom; however, it still isn't common for women on the World Surfing League to step away from the tour to start a family. Especially a world champion.
In recent years, other professional women surfers started families, including Bethany Hamilton (mom to four kids), Alana Blanchard (mom to two kids), and Kelia Moniz Termini (mom to two kids). These women have diversified their surfing careers to include motivational speaking, modeling, and movies alongside competing, and have prioritized family life as well as their surfing careers.
Like Moore, these three ladies were raised and still live on the Hawaiian Islands where ohana is valued as a deeply important part of life. (Surfing makes that list, too!)
Looking back further, there was another woman professional surfer who had a baby and won world titles: four-time world champion Lisa Andersen. While competing on the professional surfing tour in the winter of 1992, Andersen became pregnant with her first child.
Andersen kept the pregnancy a secret and competed in heavy waves at Sunset Beach, on O'ahu's north shore. In August 1993, Andersen gave birth to her daughter Erica. After stepping into motherhood, she went on to win four consecutive world titles from 1994-1997 and became one of the most iconic and impactful women surfers of all time.
In her announcement of leaving competitive surfing to start a family, Moore made sure not to mention the word, "retirement." At 32 years old, we can see that retiring isn't what she's doing - women don't announce they're "retiring" when they become pregnant.
One of the best surfers in the world, Moore is family planning, responsibly making shifts to her life to prioritize where she'll dedicate her time and energy in the following years. Moore is a woman just like the rest of us, and her choosing to start a family shows that even someone who is the best in the world at her career does not have to let it limit or define her.
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