Lakey Peterson Slips Out Of Her Robe For ESPN’s Body Issue

Surfing has a rooted history in ESPN’s The Body Issue.

Form Kelly Slater’s leggy sprint, Laird and his wife’s Stand Up Paddle Duet, all the way to Coco Ho, Steph Gilmore, and Courtney Conlogue de-robing for the overarching leader of all things sports journalism and coverage. The Body Issue is a sacred, annual magazine that’s applauded for its ability to remove the sexual nature of nudity and focus on strength, agility, and athleticism of the human form.

Current World Number four, Lakey Peterson, is the next CT surfer to strip down, rub skin on wax, and go for a wiggle with ESPN’s camera crews.

And, as you might imagine, she looks astounding.

Click above for the BTS video from the shoot, and scroll below for the imagery and a few excerpts of ESPN’s interview with Santa Barbara’s potential future World Champ 

ESPN: You’re a Santa Barbara native. Were you just destined to learn to surf?


Growing up in a town that’s very focused around the beach, I grew up boogie boarding and body surfing. But no one in my family really surfed a whole lot. At around age 11, my neighbor across the street and his dad would go surfing every day, so I just started going with them down the street. I wouldn’t say it was love at first surf, but one thing led to another and I was like, wow, this is so much fun. I signed up for a few contests and went pro at 16.

But at 5, you guys left to sail the world. What was that trip like?


It was incredible. That was the first time I actually surfed, in Manly Beach, Australia. We stayed there for about a month of that trip, and I did a summer camp with my brother and my sister. That’s when I learned to surf, on the soft tops. That trip in general, getting to see the world at such a young age, set me up for what I do now. I go all over the world all year long, and I found myself going back to a lot of places we went on that trip. It’s kind of weird; it’s almost like my parents knew that I was going to be doing this.

At just 14, you were the first woman to complete an aerial maneuver in a competition. How did you get the confidence to try that?

I was so young I didn’t have any idea that girls weren’t doing that, or that hadn’t been done. I saw all of these boys doing it, and I always hung out with boys and surfed with boys from a young age. I was just really innocent and not hindered by the fact of, like, oh, girls don’t do this. No, this is what you do as a surfer.

Your rookie year was amazing — you won rookie of the year. Then last year, seven seasons in, you were runner-up for the world title. What’s next?

Winning a world title is the goal, and last year I came so close. It was really an amazing experience to be in a title race and to put together a year like I did. I was really proud of that. I’m just trying to take everything I learned from last year and apply those to this year. And we have the Olympics for the first time ever in Tokyo, 2020, so obviously qualifying for that is a huge goal.

For the full feature and interview, head here.