Molly Picklum

They’re calling it a meteoric rise: Molly Picklum, just 20 years old and only in her second attempt at the World Surf League Championship Tour, became the number-one female surfer in the world in February after a stellar turn on Hawaii’s North Shore. In truth, Picklum has been competing in surf events near her home on the NSW Central Coast since she was just 13, and was named Australian Pro Junior in 2019 and Female Rising Star at the 2020 Australian Surfing Awards. She is in possession of that athletic alchemy: indelible talent and a fierce competitive streak. “I love competing because I get to test myself against the best women in the world,” she says.

Picklum calls surfing a “humbling experience”, the feeling of being at the mercy of the ocean as the waves rise and fall. It’s something she has already experienced on a professional level after she was cut from her first year on the Championship Tour in 2022 after losing in the quarterfinals at Margaret River. But Picklum fought her way back into the top rankings, winning the Hurley Sunset Pro in February. “I’m glad it happened,” she says now. “I learned a lot about myself and feel proud of how I worked through the challenge.”

The World title and the Paris 2024 Olympics are now both in sight, and Picklum – also an Optus Youth Ambassador, where she hopes to inspire teenagers to achieve their dreams – can call on surfing legends Layne Beachley, Mick Fanning and Stephanie Gilmore as mentors. She also has the support of Ash Barty, who is Optus’s Chief of Inspiration Officer. “Stay true to yourself,” was one piece of advice that both Barty and Fanning shared with her. “Both are loved by Australians,” Picklum says, “because they have a good honest crack!” That’s something we can count on her for, too.