Progression is at the core of everything we do as humans. If you don’t progress, you stagnate and are rendered irrelevant. This is especially true of sports. Athletes are always looking to run faster, climb higher and generally “raise the bar” – a saying itself that originates from sport.
Things usually tick along at a reasonable rate, but every now and then someone comes along who moves things in quantum shifts. The obvious example in surfing was Kelly Slater. When Kelly came along he changed the whole game. He was so far ahead of the curve he was virtually unbeatable and the whole criteria of the sport shifted to catch up to his level. Seemingly overnight, tour surfers were left looking old, tired and redundant.
Now we have that same quantum shift happening in women’s surfing, and a member of the movement’s spearhead is 13-year-old Sierra Kerr. This clip, shot during 2020 in the Mentawai Islands, showcases her freakish talent, and the exciting part is that it is indicative of the talent coming through in the next wave of women’s surfing. It’s exciting stuff.