One of the greatest surfers of her generation, Carissa Moore, won the two big events of the year. The only Native Hawaiian surfer at the Olympic Games, she defeated Bianca Buitendag in the final, at Tsurigasaki Beach near Tokyo, to take the first ever women’s Olympic surfing gold medal. Then, in September, she won the World Surf League’s world championship, staged in a single day format, at San Clemente, California. This was her fifth world title. At the age of 29, it puts her just two behind Layne Beachley and Stephanie Gilmore who have both won seven. An inductee into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame, she has even had a day in January declared ‘Carissa Moore Day’ by her home state of Hawaii.