Layne Beachley Snags Women's Surfing World Title
Dec 14 2006 / Los Angeles, CAVeteran Australian surfer still has the winning touch when it comes to riding Maui waves.
Layne Beachley hates to lose and loves to win, so right now Layne Beachley is in love. The second and final day of the Billabong Pro Maui went off on Sunday, December 10, 2006. The three-woman race going into the event became a two-woman event when Melanie Redman-Carr went down on the first day. That left six time World Champion Layne Beachley and 2005 World Champion Chelsea Georgeson in a complex equation of who finished where when, to decide the crown.
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God created Chelsea Georgeson to surf Honolua Bay, an event she has won twice in the past and where she claimed her World Title in 2005, also winning the event and the Triple Crown. But in the quarterfinals, Georgeson ran into a charged-up Aussie in the form of Claire Bevliacqua, who comboed Chelsea, knocked her out of the race and handed the title to her Australienne mate, Layne Beachley, who beat Rebecca Woods in her quarter final before getting comboed herself by Jessie Miley Dyer.
Layne Beachley is now a seven-time World Champion, reclaiming the title she lost to Sofia Mulanovich in 2004 after winning it six times in a row. In that respect she is similar to Kelly Slater, who also won six World Titles before going into a multi-year semi-retirement and then coming back to claim #7, and then #8.
How many more World Titles are there left for Layne Beachley. Heaven knows as Layne is now a veteran competitor getting pushed by the likes of Steph Gilmore, Jessie Miley-Dyer and a Girl’s School of 20-something surfers who came up inspired by the surfing and determination of Layne Beachley, and who are now determined to get some of that glory for themselves.
Writing about Layne Beachley in the premier issue of WET Magazine, veteran Australian pro surfer Prue Jeffries said: “Some surfers have all the ability, but lack drive and focus. They never go where that blessing could lead them. Layne, on the other hand, has pretty good ability. What set her apart was DRIVE. No one comes even close to the drive she has: the want, the need, the all-consuming desire to dominate and win. Losing drives her crazy. She doesn’t just lose sleep over it, she hates it.”
Beachley’s drive may have something to do with her upbringing. Born Tania Maris Gardner in 1972, she was adopted by parents who changed her name and her life. Beachley’s adoptive mother Valerie died when Layne was six, and who knows what effect that had on her psyche. Beachley first tried surfing at four but didn’t get passionate about it until she was 16: “I was the only girl that hung around at the beach,” Layne was quoted. “I had to be one of the guys. I had to surf as good as the guys, give as much shit as the guys and to take as much as they could give me.”
Layne grew up a tomsurferboy, giving and taking lumps verbal and physical with the boys around Manly Beach in Sydney, and earning the nickname Gidget. Beachley played soccer and tennis, but when surfing took over, Layne set out on a path to take it over completely. She skipped the usual amateur path and began competing professionally in 1988, at 16. By 1992 she was sixth in the world but her competitive record was like a Richter scale: up and down, good and bad,. “In the mid-nineties, when Layne was always second to Lisa Andersen it fueled her fire to never be second again,” Prue Jeffries wrote in WET Magazine. In 1998, Layne hooked up with bigwave surfer Ken Bradshaw. Layne listened to Ken, and benefited, evening out her performance in small waves and winning her first World Title in 1998. As the Aussies say, it’s been on for young and old ever since.
Layne won her first World Title at the age of 26 and then she won it every year, through the turn of the Century, to 2003. Her goal was to top Lisa Anderson’s four world titles and she did that, plus two. “Sofia Mulanovich – a South American surfer who was perhaps even more determined to succeed than Layne - won the World Title in 2004. “Then suddenly she was second again,” Prue Jeffries wrote in WET Magazine. “Layne was graceful in losing the World Title to Sofia in 2004, but we all knew she was just soaking it up it come back harder in 2005. Layne was ready for the assault, Yet the mortality of being in a human body, prone to injuries when she pushed hard stopped her.”
Layne finished not second but fifth in the world in 2005, the year Chelsea Georgeson and Sofia Mulanovich went tiara to tiara at Honolua Bay, and Chelsea came out Queen for a Year. “Layne has had two years of salt sitting in her wounds,” Prue Jeffries wrote in WET. “two years to really think how much she wants that crown again. If I were one of the girls on tour I would be stressing in my bunker and getting ready for all out war.”
Prue was right. The season began with Melanie Redman-Carr taking out the first three events, but Layne was right there behind that unexpected by not surprising onslaught by the West Australian. Layne finished second, second and third at Queensland, Fiji and Tahiti, then after a long break, Layne won Brazil, took fifth in France, second at her own Havaiana's Beachley Classic in Sydney. Known for her love of and prowess at Sunset Beach, Layne took a fifth at the Roxy Pro Hawaii at Sunset, and was leading the ratings going into the final event of the year, with Melanie Redman-Carr and Chelsea Georgeson.
The first rounds of the Billabong Pro Maui were held on the first really A+ day of the year at Honolua Bay, leaving the local surfers and webcast announcer Derek Ho watching with occasional horror through spread fingers as some of the best women surfers could not handle the size and power of the surf. Beachley has always thrived in big surf though. She was one of the first women to tow surf, bagging a giant wave at Todos Santos and surviving many unheralded North Shore outer reef tow expeditions going back to her time with Ken Bradshaw.
Many of the women struggled with the size and power of Honolua Bay on the first day, but Layne posted three of the top five wave scores of the entire event, scoring 9.65, 9.80 and 9.85 in each of her three heats. Layne then scored an uncharacteristically got comboed in the semifinal, maybe being nice and cruising to let Jessi Miley-Dyer go on to a great glory in the final – which she did. But those who know Layne know that winning is everything, even after she was won.
Now the question is the same for Layne as it is for Kelly Slater. They were born within three months of each year the same year, 1972. They both are in their mid-30s, they both are phenomenally dedicated to win. Slater has eight World Titles and Layne has seven, with a bullet. There is lots more fight left in the adopted tomboy from Manly Beach and she will be around for many years to come.
- Ben Marcus
