Carissa Moore not ruling out comeback “to show my daughter that world” after surfing at Paris 2024 while pregnant

Competing on one of the world’s most challenging waves at the Olympic Games while pregnant is a feat few surfers would dare to try, but Carissa Moore has never been one to shy away from exploring unchartered territory.

The five-time world champion, and Olympic gold medallist from Tokyo 2020 in 2021, competed on Teahupo’o in Tahiti at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 while more than three-months pregnant. She finished fifth in the women’s event and is not ruling out returning to top level competition after the February due date.

“That’s an unknown right now,” Moore told The Inertia. “But knowing how competitive I am and how much I like a challenge, I think it’d be fun to do a couple of wildcard events at some point and see how that feels. I’m going to give myself some time to heal and recover and get back to surfing the way that I want to surf. I don’t know what that’s going to look like, but for sure the door is not closed on competing.”

The USA surfer found out in mid-June that she and her husband Luke Untermann were expecting their first child and was about 10 and a half weeks into her pregnancy during Paris 2024. Rather than panicking about what this meant for her prospects of defending the Olympic title, Moore took her new situation in stride.

“I thought it was going to take us a while to get pregnant, just with the stress and travel and all this stuff that I go through,” she said. “I didn’t know if it was going to all line up. When it did, I realised how fortunate I was for it to happen at that time. It was beautiful to have this other thing to transition out of the Olympics to look forward to.”

While Teahupo’o is considered to be one of the most dangerous waves in the world, Moore did not modify her training or approach to competition after discovering that she was pregnant. She had talked to her doctor beforehand and was assured that it was safe to surf.

What was more difficult was dealing with the side effects that the champion surfer experienced in the first trimester.

“The hardest part was the nausea and fatigue,” Moore said. “I didn’t really feel myself, but I was like, ‘Hey, this is just an obstacle that I’m going to have to face and I’m going to have to get it done.’ I definitely went out and gave it my best every day.”