‘Cat and mouse game': How 12-year-old Kelia will tackle the 12-foot slabs of Teahupo'o

The Age

13 hours ago

The cool kids would say Teahupo'o is going turbo this week. As if by some transcendental spiritual force, a southwest swell has hit the revered-and-feared reef just in time for the Tahiti Pro. And those not busy pondering the prospect of surfing a 12-foot slab themselves have been asking how a 12-year-old might approach such a risky endeavour.
Kelia Mehani Gallina's father is just as concerned with basic physics. She stands just four feet and nine inches, and he still pushes her onto bigger waves.
'She's so small that she can't really catch a 10-foot wave – it would be almost physically impossible,' says Ryan on the eve of his daughter's record-breaking Championship Tour debut. 'There's a mathematical limit, the way I'm looking at it, with her size, her weight, and the size of her board as well.'
If the math ain't mathing on the day, Gallina will have to find another way.
The tiny girl with the golden hair will become the youngest pro surfer in competitive history from Friday, having earned her spot as a wildcard in the local trials last month. And if the swell is still pushing 10 feet as forecast, and she cannot physically paddle on the biggest waves, her heat against Australian world No.1 (and golfing buddy at the family backyard driving range) Molly Picklum and American star Lakey Peterson will become more of a puzzle to solve.
'The game plan is to try to get the medium wave in between the big sets, which is very difficult as well, because then you can get the big wave on your head,' says Ryan. 'In the event that it's big, if she can build up the courage and ability to play the cat and mouse game.
Anything that's like a 10-foot face and smaller, I think she can catch. If she's positioned well, she's committed and everything comes into place, she can do it.'
So there is danger in the physics, too. And Gallina herself admits to being 'a little bit scared'. 'Because of the size,' she clarifies, as if not self-evident. But she is 'super excited' too, which she conveys via a high-pitched chirp down the other end of a phone line that reminds she is not yet a teenager.
She will be this Sunday, by which point she'll know whether excited or scared becomes the dominant emotion as the world watches her tackle a break she has known intimately since she was four years old.