Molly Picklum one heat away from historic WSL surfing world title

The Australian

3 days ago

A penny for Molly Picklum's thoughts as she gazes longingly at the horizon, ambitiously and impatiently, for the two breathless waves she needs to become Australia's first world surfing champion since her great and graceful mentor Stephanie Gilmore triumphed a couple of moons ago.
Picklum's a tremendous character. Heart is permanently positioned on singlet sleeve. Comments are mostly unfiltered and soulful. The weather's beautiful, the waves are beautiful, everything's beautiful. She's a frother, to use the vernacular; a surfer's surfer, the biggest female charger the sport has ever seen.
She paddles like the clappers and takes a deep breath, and peers over the steepest ledges before going like Eddie Aikau on formidable waves the rest of us waxheads think twice about. She's fun, fearless and bloody fantastic. Her helmet isn't for decoration.
'Aw, mate,' she said at Bells Beach last year, 'you've just gotta go!'
Eddie Would Go is a famous saying among boardriders. Are you bold enough to take off on the big stuff? Eddie would go. Well, Molly goes on peaks that others, including yours truly, would not. And right now she's in the totally surreal position of having to wait two weeks for the one heat that could make her the champ-eeeon of the world. It's wild.
She'll partake of the final of the World Surf League event against Californian groover Caitlin Simmers at Tahiti's Teahupo'o in coming days.
Then comes her guaranteed position in the pressure-packed, winner-takes-all championship match at the WSL Finals off the Fijian paradise of Tavarua island on August 27.
Cue the restless nights, the expectations, the visualisations, all of those beautiful things. So wild.
It's like having a putt to win a golf major but waiting a fortnight to get the ball rolling. Like a conversion attempt to win a grand final but you must come back at the end of the month. Like serving for Wimbledon but sitting through a two-week rain delay.
Her thoughts: 'It's funny because when you get really close to achieving your dream, it all gets really scary. I'm just happy that I dream so big and it makes me scared and makes me focus, and it challenges me and all of those beautiful things.'
Reaching the final at Teahupo'o has ensured Picklum the yellow singlet, top seeding and automatic progression to the decider at Tavarua's magical, mystical Cloudbreak.
One heat, just two excellent waves, is all she needs to be the champ. For enormity of stakes, for the raw emotion bursting from Picklum at the best of times, let alone in a moment like this … good golly, Miss Molly. It'll be electrifying.
Waiting, waiting. Picklum and Simmers have the best rivalry since Mick and Parko, since Kelly Slater and Andy Irons, and since Gilmore and Carissa Moore. As though the surfing gods have conferred and granted surfing fans the exact scenario we've desired, Picklum and Simmers are the last women standing at Tahiti and, potentially, Fiji.
Their Teahupo'o final will be a belter and then at Cloudbreak, the most beautiful wave in the world, and one of the most intimidating, a thunderous left-hander on which not everyone wants to go, Picklum will sit back and watch the rest of the world's top five duke it out for the honour of taking her on. I bet world No.3 Simmers, the defending world champion, gets through. I betcha.
'Caity and I always hype each other up,' Picklum says. 'Whenever we come up against each other, it's a real surf-off. We make each other go extra hard. That's fun for us and the fans. It just fills my heart. Hopefully I get one up on her. It's always an honour to verse Caity.'
A minor tweak to the rules is majorly in Picklum's favour. The WSL Finals' decider has always been best-of-three heats. It still is, with an asterisk. If the top seed wins the first heat, she gets the trophy. If not, it goes the distance.
If you know Picklum, you know she'll throw a thousand kitchen sinks at that first heat, all of those beautiful things, and then a thousand more.
Waiting, waiting. On the horizon is August 27 and a couple of towering left-handers that might have her name and the world title on them. Who knows? There's no more unpredictable playing field than an ocean.
For now, she's waiting, waiting for competition to resume at Teahupo'o, where the women's top five and seedings for the finals has been set: Picklum followed by four Americans in Gabriela Bryan, Simmers, Caroline Marks and Bettylou Sakura Johnson.
The men's contest in Tahiti has reached the quarter-finals. Australia's Ethan Ewing (No.5) and Jack Robinson (No.7) remain in contention to join Picklum on the boat to Fiji.
One heat. Two weeks to wait. A win will be worth all the pennies in the world.
'I don't think it's sunk in that it's so close,' she says. 'It probably won't until after the fact. There are four incredible surfers who can come for me so there's still a lot of work to get done.
'I'm just so grateful to be here in Tahiti. I'd love to win here. That's my focus for now. The waves and the weather are beautiful …' Will Swanton Sport Reporter
Will Swanton is a sportswriter who's won Walkley, Kennedy, Sport Australia and News Awards. He's won the Melbourne Press Club's Harry Gordon Award for Australian Sports Journalist of the Year. Nation
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