Oceanside’s Caitlin Simmers, currently ranked #1 in the world among women’s surfers, will, in a matter of days, represent America in the 2024 Paris Games surfing competition, which will be held not in mainland France but at one of the gnarliest – and most beautiful – waves in the world: Teahupo’o, in Tahiti, part of French Polynesia.
And while Simmers is Oceanside’s pride and joy and gets most of the limelight, there’s someone else that you need to know about: Encinitas’ Alyssa Spencer, who just completed her rookie season on the Championship Tour level, finishing–assuming her position holds–16th in the world. Can you say, STOKED!
In nine contests over the course of the tour, the 21-year-old goofy foot secured four 9th place finishes in a very competitive field that also included surfers from Hawaii, Brazil, and Australia.
Spencer is grateful for her local roots. “My earliest memories of surfing were down at Cardiff Reef,” she said, noting that her dad “would push me into these perfect little peeling lefts.”
The 5’6” surfer has a close–and competitive–relationship with her brother, Taj, named after Australian standout surfer Taj Burrow. “We definitely both got the competitive spark in us. I feel like, from a young age, whatever we were doing, I never wanted my little brother to beat me,” she said. “He definitely pushed me to be a better person and also kind of shaped me into the surfer that I am today. If there’s a barrel that I get, he always tells me I could have been deeper,” she said, laughing.
Spencer’s dad, also a surfer, is a fire captain with the Encinitas Fire Department and has been a huge influence on his daughter, especially when it comes to his work ethic. “I just see how much hard work he’s put in to being where he is and I feel like that definitely inspires me to find my passion, whatever it is, and work hard to fulfill my dreams.”
Before the 2024 tour is over, the World Surf League will have run 11 contests, including finals day, which will be held at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, a performance-oriented wave at the border of San Diego County and Orange County.
The San Diego County trifecta includes Spencer and Simmers on the women’s side, along with Jake Marshall on the men’s side, another Encinitas resident who has had a consistently strong 2024 season and is ranked 11th in the world. He was, however, unable to move into the top 5, which would have given him a shot at winning the championship title at Trestles in September.
Unfortunately, Spencer failed to make the midseason cut, which reduces the field from the Top 17 women’s surfers in the world to the Top 10, and the Top 32 men’s surfers to the Top 22. That said, Spencer is looking forward to securing a spot on the 2025 Championship Tour and will hopefully build on the success she enjoyed in 2024.
For now, the best men’s and women’s surfers in the world are headed to the Paris Olympic Games. The surfing portion will be held at the fearsome, cylindrical bowl, Teahupo’o, 10,000 miles from Paris, close to a 24-hour flight, sometime between July 27 and August 5.
Why isn’t there a specific, pre-planned date for the contest? Because they need waves in order to run a contest, and while forecasting the surf is becoming more of a science, still, you never know until the day-of. The contest administrators will check the surf first thing in the morning and make a call, and repeat that routine each day until a decent swell arrives. When exactly the contest runs depends on how cooperative Mother Nature is.
Be patient. It will be worth it.
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