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The GOATs will quickly be gone and which means an ocean of potentialities this 12 months for Australian browsing star Molly Picklum.
At 21, Picklum is a distinguished member of the brand new guard among the many World Surf League ladies highlighted by final 12 months’s world title winner, Caroline Marks.
The American, additionally 21, beat five-time world champion Carissa Moore within the last.
Moore has scaled again her competitors dramatically this season – she’s going to solely surf the Pipe Professional, the opening spherical, then the Tahiti Professional and step away from the WSL after the Olympics.
Australian legend Stephanie Gilmore, the eight-time world champion, is having a sabbatical for the season.
Picklum additionally made the five-surfer last final season, ending fifth, after lacking the mid-season lower in 2022.
“Now the GOATs are gone, it is an fascinating one – we’re simply going to do the identical factor. We’re simply hungry, we wish to give it a go, we wish to win,” Picklum mentioned of Gilmore and Moore.
“We wish to push browsing. I am somewhat bit older, I assume I’ve been front-running somewhat bit. I simply benefit from the problem of seeing the place I can push and the place I can get higher.
“Final 12 months I most likely felt like I began actually sturdy after which I obtained misplaced there within the center. I wasn’t loving it as a lot.
“Then I attempted to come back house sturdy. This 12 months I most likely really feel extra sustainable in my psychological recreation.”
Lacking the lower in 2022 was a bitter blow for Picklum, however making the ultimate confirmed her what is feasible.
“That is why it’s so exhausting, if you do get knocked off tour, as a result of it is not the place you assume you belong,” she mentioned.
“Now clearly being last 5, I’ve had a very good shot on the world title and obtained somewhat bit (of a style) of the way it feels.
“I actually do really feel I am the place I belong and I wish to push a bit tougher.”
The ready interval for the Pipe Professional, on the iconic Banzai Pipeline break on Hawaii’s North Shore, begins early on Tuesday morning (AEDT).
Australian Sally Fitzgibbons, who’s again on the world tour, could have Hawaii’s Moore and Brisa Hennessy of Costa Rica in her round-one warmth.
One of many highlights of the boys’s opening spherical might be Australian Jack Robinson, who gained the Pipe Professional final 12 months, in opposition to 51-year-old American legend Kelly Slater, the 11-time world champion, and Rio Waida from Indonesia.
Picklum begins her 2024 marketing campaign in opposition to Brazilian Tatiana Weston-Webb and American Alyssa Spencer.
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