When we spoke with Steph a couple of weeks back, she was in California. She’d just returned from a surf trip to Mexico with mates, and then spent finals day down at Trestles. She originally wasn’t going to go (“too hot, too crowded”) but the prospect of Caity Simmers winning a ground-shifting women’s world title felt too important to miss.
Steph hadn’t been back to Trestles since she came from the clouds to win her eighth world title there two years ago, a win that sealed her status as some kind of quasi-religious surfing icon. It’s unlikely anyone will ever match her. But while she hasn’t officially called time on the tour, you feel her surfing energy in the years ahead will be more diffuse, radiating out into more remote…
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Surfing World (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 424