In the barrel, no one can hear you scream

The killer waves surfers will face at the Paris Olympics are the source of dreams and nightmares. Braveheart Molly Picklum tells Editor at Large Louise Evans how she will dance with the devil.

“It’s magical, death defying, powerful, beautiful.”

Australia’s world number four surf champion Molly Picklum is describing one of the world’s most dangerous waves – Teahupo’o on the southwestern coast of Tahiti, in French Polynesia.

It’s the venue for the Paris Olympics and it’s terrifying. 

It can be up to seven metres but that’s not what makes it frightening. It’s the dramatic decrease in the sea floor depth that creates the mesmerizingly murderous wave. 

Over a very short distance, the sea floor off Teahupo’o rises from a depth of about 15 metres to a shallow one-metre reef which forces the wave up and over a steep ocean ridge.

With so much water moving so fast, the wave breaks over the top of the sea ridge and curls as it drops, creating a huge tube of heavy water barrelling to the shore and crashing on the shallow reef below.  

The dangers are at the drop where surfers slide off their sea ledge into the barrel and the sharp shallow reef at the bottom. 

Picklum describes surfing at Teahupo’o as dancing with the devil. “There is always fear, as there is always uncertainty on the other side of the ledge,” the 21-year-old braveheart explains. “The excitement hits you in the channel but there is fear every moment before that.”

Very few Paris-bound athletes compete at an Olympic venue that poses a threat to life and limb. But the world’s best surfers are cool about it. The ocean has many faces. It is always moving. They surf Teahupo’o every year as part of the World Pro tour. But while familiarity with the famous left-hand barrel reduces the fear factor – it doesn’t reduce the risk.

“I think the better you get, the more control you have,” Picklum said. “The more control you have, the more you can enjoy being in the moment. Going over the ledge is exhilarating for sure. After that point, it’s definitely instinctive to ride the wave.”

Having survived the drop and being propelled inside the tube, Picklum says the world goes strangely quiet. The volume of barrelling water around her creates a vacuum, an inner sanctum. “It’s similar to standing in a cave. There is a weird silence.”

When she’s in the barrel it feels like time stands still but within seconds the ride is over and avoiding being shredded in the shallows is paramount.

“You feel the safest when you are inside the barrel. Big barrels are still scary though. Paddle hard to survive, be decisive and commit.”

“The risky part is exiting the barrel as if you fall there, it is the shallowest part of the reef. The risk is always big, the ocean is unpredictable. If you make a mistake you end up on the reef… you are in mother nature’s hands.”

Picklum has been putting her life in mother nature’s hands since she was three and old enough to stand up on a board at Shelly Beach on the NSW Central Coast.

She would surf before and after school and compete with the other kids at North Shelly Boardriders who would paddle like hell to catch the last wave of the morning and then pedal like hell on their bikes to beat the school bell.

Surfing got serious when she was 14 and won a Layne Beachley Rising Star Award at a Surfing Australia talent identification camp.

“That was a turning point for sure,” Picklum said. “Until then I was surfing purely for fun and had no idea of competitions or the pathways for getting on the tour. It was definitely a key moment.”

Her climb up the world ranks was as fast as a rising Teahupo’o wave. It helped that Australia had a legion of influential female world champions who Picklum could look up to – including early world champions including Pam Burridge, Pauline Menczer and Wendy Botha who successfully fought for equal access to competitions, waves and prize money. 

They in turn helped pave the way for seven-time world champion Beachley and eight-time champion Stephanie Gilmore. By 2022, just two years out of school, Picklum was following in the footsteps of these giants into the World Surf League’s (WSL) Championship Tour.

The following year Picklum came of age personally and professionally. She won her first Championship event – the 2023 Sunset Beach Pro in Oahu Hawaii – and finished the year celebrating her 21st birthday as the world’s No.5 ranked surfer.

Picklum started writing her own name into world surfing history this year at the season-opening 2024 Lexus Pipe Pro in Hawaii where she scored the first-ever women’s perfect 10 with a backside tube ride that went viral.

She cascaded to the next event in Hawaii and defended her 2023 win at the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach with a second tour victory. The win made Picklum the first woman to go back-to-back at Sunset since Beachley, who achieved the feat back in 1999 and 2000.

On her way to the final Picklum performed what’s been described as one of the biggest turns in women’s surfing. She recorded 9.67 with an aggressive turn back up a wave that popped her out the top. Surfer Magazine described it as “the turn of the event … maybe even the decade.”

“I threw everything at it and I kind of fell out of the sky and I was either dead or in the final,” Picklum said of the move. “That’s Sunset, you’ve gotta commit. Lucky I made it.”

In May she was selected to represent Australia at the Paris Olympics along with teammates and fellow leading world surfers – Jack Robinson, Ethan Ewing and Tyler Wright whose brother Owen won bronze in Tokyo. 

Carrying her country on her back to Tahiti is a bonus not a burden for Picklum who’s looking forward to showcasing her superhero skills on the world’s biggest sporting stage, pushing through the danger zone and chasing waves she’s scared of.

“The Olympics and surfing is an interesting dynamic and it’s inspiring to be a part of it,” she said. 

“I will feel really proud and honoured to put on the green and gold. It’ll really add fuel to my fire to get gold, not just for myself but for my fellow athletes and for the whole country.

“It’ll feel like wearing the whole nation, which is exciting and I feel like you need that pressure and support to throw yourself over the waves.”

More history was written at the Tahiti Pro in late May but not by Picklum who finished fifth in the world. The famed Teahupo’o waves threw up a wildcard in 24-year-old Tahiti native Vahiné Fierro, who won the event at her home break. 

Fierro beat Picklum in the quarter-final and in the semi defeated Hawaiian-Brazilian veteran Tatiana Weston-Webb, who became the first woman to score a perfect 10 during the Tahiti competition.

Fierro then went toe-to-toe with Costa Rican world No1 Brisa Hennessy in the final and emerged with the win.  “I just had a special connection with the wave, the place, the people and Teahupo’o sent me the waves and I just took them and surfed it,” she said. 

While Fierro competes on the second-tier challenger series she’s qualified for the Olympics. Her timely victory installs her as an Olympic gold medal favourite at her home break where she can again exploit her local knowledge.

The Olympic draw announced on May 29 is brutal for Picklum who has both Weston-Webb and America’s world number two Caitlin Simmers in her opening heat.

“I’m used to surfing against the best in the world and I’m fortunate to do that on a daily basis,” says Picklum, shrugging off her difficult draw. “You’ve got to beat them all to get the trophy.”

The men’s and women’s Olympic draw has 24 athletes each divided into eight three-person heats for the opening round. The winner of the first heat advances to round three while the two losers compete again in round two, featuring eight head-to-head matchups with the loser being eliminated. After the first round, the rest of the match-ups are one-on-one.

Despite the drawbacks, Picklum’s recipe for survival and success in Teahupo’o remains simple: “To get a great score I think you need to take off deep, drive through the barrel and make it.”

It’ll be “magical, death defying, powerful, beautiful” and hopefully golden.