Tyler Wright is a 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 elder brother Owen was a top ranked junior surfer, and her younger brother Mikey would follow in his footsteps. That meant 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.
However her biggest challenge was yet to come. Wright contracted influenza on a trip to Africa in 2018 year and after cutting her season short was then floored by brutal post-viral symptoms that saw her miss 12 months of competition. At one stage her career seemed in doubt, but as with her brother Owen, she fought the illness, regained her strength and got back in the water. In her first event back in Maui in 2019 she made it to the Final proving that not only was she back to full-fitness but that a third World Title was very much in her sights.