Olympians Caity Simmers and John John Florence won the World Surfing Championships on Friday, giving the United States the women’s and men’s titles for the first time since 2011.
Simmers, an 18-year-old from Oceanside, California, became the youngest world champion in World Surf League history.
She defeated Olympic gold medalist Caroline Marks in a best-of-three championship series at Lower Trestles outside San Clemente, California.
“This means so much to me,” Simmers said. “I literally experienced every single emotion today.”
In the first run, Simmers took the lead in the final minute of the 35-minute head-to-head race with a 8.37-point surge. Then, as time expired, Marks scored 9.60 points to win 17.43 to 16.87.
In the second run, Simmers achieved 9.20 and 9.17 out of 10 possible points for a total of 18.37 points, the highest individual combination in the four-year history of the WSL final format for men and women.
The deciding match was an easier victory for Simmers: 15.16 to 7.17 without any waves.
The WSL Finals were introduced in 2021 and the top five surfers per gender advance from the regular season to the ranked playoffs.
The women’s and men’s playoffs began with the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds facing off. The winner faced the No. 3 seed. The next winner faced the No. 2 seed. The next winner faced the No. 1 seed in the championship series.
Both Simmers and Florence, as the top-ranked surfers in the regular season, received a bye into the best-of-three championship series in the five-surfer final.
Before 2021, world champions were crowned solely based on the points standings of the respective season.
Simmers is six days younger than the youngest WSL world champion to date – Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Carissa Moore, who won the first of her five world titles in 2011 at the age of 18.
Before the founding of International Professional Surfing (IPS) in 1976, there were younger world champions, including 15-year-old American Margo Oberg (then Godfrey) in 1968.
Simmers won the 2021 US Open at age 15 and qualified for the 2022 World Surf League Championship Tour. She chose to stay with the Challenger Series this year instead to spend more time with family and friends, school and maturing as an athlete.
She made her full-time Championship Tour debut in 2023, won her third competition, finished fourth at these WSL Finals and secured the final spot on the three-person U.S. Olympic team for 2024.
At the Olympics in Tahiti, Simmers was eliminated in the round of 16.
All three American women who have competed in Olympic surfing competitions have now won world titles: Simmers, Marks in 2023 and Moore (most recently in 2021).
In the men’s final on Friday, Florence claimed his third world title by sweeping Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Italo Ferreira of Brazil in the championship series of 15.50 to 15.33 and 18.13 to 16.30.
Florence equalled eleven-time world champion Kelly Slater’s record for the longest break between two world championship titles since the founding of the IPS: seven years.
“The last seven years have been so hard,” said Florence, shedding tears in the water. “So many injuries and fighting for this position was so exhausting, and then this new format.”
The Hawaiian’s highlight was a 9.70-point wave in the second game, the highest individual score in the history of the finals, according to WSL commentary.
Florence ended Brazil’s streak of five consecutive titles since Florence won two in a row in 2016 and 2017.
The last time Americans won the world title was in 2011, when Moore won her first title and Slater won his eleventh and final title.
