Surfing is dropping in at the Olympic Games
for the first time ever.
Forty athletes hope to win the sport's first-ever gold,
but only one is being watched over
by her Native Hawaiian ancestors,
including the father of modern surfing.
Will the pressure to represent her heritage
wipe out Carissa Moore's chance to make history?
And when conditions are like this,
it's really a battle against the ocean.
Or can the 28-year-old American
tame her competition and the waves
to pocket surfing's first Olympic gold?
Wait for it.
Aloha!
I'm Olympic sprinter Lisanne de Witte.
Running's been part of the Olympics since day one.
Not so for surfing.
With its roots in ancient Polynesia,
Native Hawaiians have been honoring
their love for the ocean for centuries
with he'e nalu, which literally means wave sliding.
Carissa Moore was no exception.
She started wave sliding when she was five
and the grom took to the water like her Polynesian ancestors.
She was following in the wake
of Hawaiian icon Duke Kahanamoku,
who was also a three-time Olympic swimmer.
1912, he won the gold medal,
and he leaned down from the podium
to tell the International Olympic Committee,
"This is a great medal, but I'd much rather see surfing
come into this than win all these gold medals.
Duke would go on to win two more golds
and use his fame to call attention
to the beauty of he'e nalu.
Modern surfing quickly evolved into an international sport.
But it took 106 years before the world heard
that surfing was ready to hang loose at the Games, bro.
Carissa had become the youngest world champion surfer ever.
She had been inducted into the Surfers' Hall of Fame.
The State of Hawaii even honored her achievements
with a Carissa Moore Day.
But the timing of the Olympic announcement
was far from ideal.
It'd been a turbulent few years.
She hadn't won the world title since 2016.
But she found the answers in the ocean.
Surfing had taught her to focus on what she could control.
And at the 2019 World Championships,
the confident kahuna captured
her first major title in several years
and qualified for Tokyo.
Would Carissa's anxiety surge under the pressure
of being the living realization of Duke's dream?
And the task at hand for Carissa Moore right now
is to come away with a gold medal for Team USA.
Wait for it.
Can you imagine Lionel Messi being told
the big game might happen today, but it might not?
For Carissa, this was routine,
because surfing's the only event
without a specific schedule.
Officials made a schedule,
but Typhoon Nepartak didn't care.
The dangerous tropical storm created a very messy situation,
forcing them to squeeze the final rounds
into 12 jam-packed hours.
The final heat found Carissa on the beach
with South African Bianca Buitendag
ready to face the fickle waves and the upstart underdog.
Bianca has the upper hand with five wins
to Carissa's three wins in those head-to-head matchups.
All of Hawaii was glued to their TVs,
including Carissa's family,
who couldn't make the trip because of COVID restrictions.
They watched 35 minutes of aerials, cutbacks and lifters,
hoping their ohana wouldn't ragdoll.
The two best rides were added together
and the highest total scored gold.
Will the angry currents of the Pacific
push the underdog to victory?
The surfer that's able to go with the ocean,
to work together with the ocean rather than fight against it,
is going to come out on top.
Or will the Native Hawaiian
catch the golden break she needs
to ride the tide into history?
This is it. This is the day. This is the match.
Wait for it.
Even though Carissa's family couldn't join her in Tokyo,
they were with her in spirits, especially her dad, Chris.
He was with her on her first wave at age five.
The proud father supported her as a teen
when she chose surfing as a career
and was with her at high tide and low,
making sure she enjoyed the ride.
And right before his daughter paddled out for the finals,
he sent her a text,
"Hey Riss, I know it's going to be tough, just keep your head."
The eyes of the island were all on Riss.
As they watched their surfing star on the Olympic stage,
they knew the spirit of Duke was tuned in as well.
Then, as if on cue...
Look at the rainbow!
It was like Duke was wave sliding
right alongside Carissa.
She cuts back, rebounds off the water,
Chris Brown wraparound style.
Into the inside.
Oh, big fierce frontside layback under the left turn.
-That was awesome! -Wow!
Carissa Moore is going to come away
with the first-ever Olympic gold medal
in women's surfing here.
As one viewer put it,
"How rare, how cosmic,
for a rainbow to peek in on a Native Hawaiian,
on this very beach, across her home ocean,
on the very afternoon she won the first gold medal
in the history of Olympic surfing."
Carissa's win meant the world to the Hawaiian people,
not just because it fulfilled the dreams of their local hero,
but also because thousands of young girls saw a champion
that looked like them.
As a sprinter, I was lucky enough
to have dozens of inspiring women to look up to
in my journey to the Olympics.
And now, young surfers dreaming of golds have one of their own.
I'm Lisanne de Witte, waving goodbye until the next episode,
where we'll make you... wait for it.
And took the grom...
No. And the grom...
And the grom...
And the gro... Jesus!
And the grom took to the water when, like...
Jesus, that's difficult. Like I'm totally... Sorry.