Tyler Wright is the reigning two-time World Champion from Culburra, Australia. She was pushed into waves as toddler, and labeled a surfing prodigy not long after while growing up one of five surf-stoked kids on a block with more than a dozen. Her brother Owen was a top ranked junior surfer, and Tyler was indoctrinated into the competitive scene as the family rolled up and down the coast to events. In 2008, surfing as a 14-year-old wildcard, she became the youngest surfer in history to win a Championship Tour event at the Beachley Classic in Sydney. Three years later she joined the Tour fulltime, opened with a Finals appearance at the Roxy Pro and finished her rookie season at No. 4. When she finished runner-up in 2013 a future World Title seemed very much inevitable to everyone…save for Tyler, who was beginning to struggle emotionally with her life on Tour. Tyler was still a teenager, and as her favorite pastime became a job, the trill was fading fast. After finishing runner-up again in 2014 she slumped hard in 2015. She even pondered walking away. But toward the end of the season something clicked. After a close loss to Carissa Moore at Trestles she found herself caring again. Meanwhile, her brother Owen was in the heat a World Title race, which didn’t hurt. But after Owen suffered a life-threatening brain injury Wright’s perspective on everything changed. After watching him struggle to simply function during the early part of his recovery she took nothing for granted, and set out to see how good she could be. In 2016 she got her answer, winning five events on the season and running away with her first World Title. Her second World Title was just as impressive, but for different reason: Tyler was thought to be out of the race after she injured her knee in Europe, but she pressed through the pain and pulled an incredible come-from-behind victory in the final two events of the season. And with the level of talent on the women’s Tour hitting new highs in 2018, nobody is welcoming the challenge like Tyler, who loves her job more than ever.