Confirmed: Carissa Moore Officially Announces CT Departure
But she’ll still compete at Pipeline and possibly Tahiti this season.
A little more than a month after Stab reported that Carissa Moore was likely going to step away from the Championship Tour this year, the five-time World Champion and 13-year tour vet made it official last night.
Carissa announced the decision through a video montage on her Instagram.
Weeks ago, sources told Stab that Carissa will still compete at the Pipeline Pro on the North Shore this winter before stepping away from the tour. She is also slated to represent the USA at Teahupoʻo in July for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In the aftermath of Carissa’s world title loss last September, Sam McIntosh pondered if the WSL’s decision to have Lowers as the world titles-deciding venue might “kill off two surfing superstars,” meaning Carissa and John John Florence. Per her announcement, Carissa did not reference the finals as a catalyst for her departure.
Whatever her next step is, Carissa is already one of the most decorated competitive surfers of all time. She won surfing’s first Olympic gold medal in Japan in 2021 and has a real shot to repeat this summer.
According to an interview Carissa did with the New York Times, she’s planning on using the time off to reset and start a family with her husband, Luke Untermann. Moore is also the founder of the Moore Aloha Foundation, a nonprofit that supports young female surfers, so she’ll likely be invested in that endeavor, too.
“All those wins, the competitive part that’s so much of my identity, I’m taking that away, and I’m facing myself this year,” she told The Times.
“I’m human — I don’t have everything figured out,” she said. “I’m flowing and feeling and learning as I go. I’m following my heart. And the unknown is freaking scary. But I’m also excited. There is no such thing as the end until you’re in the ground.”
“Surfing is a part of who I am, and it always will be,” Carissa said on her Instagram. “This is by no means the end. I’d like to think of this instead as an evolution, the start of the next chapter, a new beginning.”
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