Legend of female surfing drops into Burleigh battle
At the Australian Boardriders Battle, we caught up with trailblazing Australian surfer Pauline Menczer, the women’s world champion in 1993.
GC AT LARGE: Thoughts on the battle event?
PAULINE MENCZER: So awesome - it’s a real teams thing. Every time I saw it on the TV, in Newcastle I thought I really want to go and when I saw it was at Burleigh, I thought I’m in. It’s nice it is really big (surf). It makes it really exciting. It’s kind of an ironman or ironwoman event, it’s just insane, the current they have and long run they have.
GC@L: How would you go with sprint up the hill?
PM: I’d be cheating and getting a ride off one of the electric bikes.
GC@L: What’s coming up for you?
PM: In June I’m launching my book and after that there is a committee trying to form to get a statue of me at Bondi beach. It’s not 100 per cent, but it’ll happen.”
GC@L: How will it feel to be immortalized?
PM: It’s not about me but it’s to encourage the next generation. When I was a kid there was no one to look up to. You didn’t see women in the magazines and so for me, they wanted to put up a plaque. I said ‘don’t worry if it’s a plaque, I want these young kids to look up and say I want to be that’. For me it’s a really important thing for women in general five per cent of statues in Australia are women, there’s more actual animal statues than women.
GC@Large: Laura Enever’s big wave record?
PM: I used to ride big waves when I was younger, I was quite crazy, but nowadays , they have got amazing training, amazing equipment, it’s very different to when I was on tour. The more that’s getting put into women, they more they are pushing each other, they more they are seeing that women are out there, (they think) I’m going to go out there.