Sally Fitzgibbons was born an athlete. From an early age she decided she wanted to be a champion at something. She played soccer and touch football, ran cross-country and ended up a national champion middle distance runner in High School.
Fitzgibbons grew up on one of the prettiest stretches of coast on the planet, in Gerroa, New South Wales. She formulated her fully loaded approach in the wide variety of sparsely crowded lineups nearby, and by 16 she’d utilized her athletic approach to become the World Junior Champion. At 18, she clinched the Qualifying Series championship faster than any women in history after tearing through the first five events.
In 2019 she again was fighting for the World Title, claiming the Jeep Leader’s Jersey after a win in Rio, before her ultimate fall to World No. 4. But she had done enough to earn her spot on Team Australia for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games. And as a bonafide sports nut, perhaps no other surfer was more excited than Fitzgibbons.
- WSL