Listen: Defending Gold Medalist Carissa Moore Gives Tearful Retirement Speech After Olympic Quarterfinal Finish
“Don’t be afraid to go into it fearlessly and don’t be afraid to fail.”
Listen to Carissa’s speach above, and read our full Olympic coverage here, here, here, here, and here, with today’s comp wrap coming shortly.
In January of this year, 5x World Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist Carissa Moore announced through a New York Times missive that she was officially retiring from competitive surfing.
After competing at the Sunset Beach and Teahupo’o CT events, Carissa came into the Olympic event a favorite — but has now lost in a windy, low scoring affair against Johanne Defay.
In graceful stride, with a few deeply felt tears, she offered a beautiful retirement oration to a crowd of reporters and onlookers.
“I took a chance, I left the tour,” she said after the Quarterfinal bout. “I came here and spent months out of the year just trying to do my very best. And when you come up short of a dream, it sucks. But at the same time, how fun was it? I wouldn’t have had it any other way. I would’ve been so bummed if I looked back and had done this halfheartedly. I went all in. And I just hope that at the end of the day, I can encourage whoever’s watching — win or lose.”
“Don’t be afraid to go into it fearlessly and don’t be afraid to fail. The process has been so much fun. I feel like there’s been a lot of personal growth in and out of the water, and I’m really proud of my backside barrel riding. I caught some waves I never thought I would’ve ever caught in my whole life in this process. Obviously I’m really sad to not be a part of Finals Day and get to represent my home and my family one more time, but I’m really grateful. I couldn’t have imagined a better place to finish off my career.”
“I’m going to give myself some time. I announced my departure from the tour earlier on this year, it’s been full on. It’s been full on for my whole life and I am really proud of that. I’m proud of how I’ve given everything,” she continued, briefly breaking down. “I think the last thing I just want to say is I want to express my gratitude to everybody who’s been there for me and supported me, not only in this event but my whole life. It’s just nice to have a community. Thank you.”
Is this the last time we’ll see the competitive titan in a jersey? Well, true to World Champion retiree form, she left herself some space to return.
“I think I’ll definitely be interested in doing some fun specialty events here and there. But yeah, for the time being, I am leaving the door open for later on, but I’ll definitely be taking a nice break after this.”
