Kalistan

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Heidi Richards takes Triple Crown
First Surfer in 70 years to win prestigious award
Luxon Beach, Grand Duchy of Ananto
July 25, 5740


Heidi Richards, 24, of Luxon wins Luxon Swell Invitational and completes Triple Crown

The first surfer to win the highly coveted, but rarely obtained Triple Crown designation is crowned in Luxon this week. Heidi Richards, the 24-year old phenom has taken the professional surf world by storm this season in absolutely dominating the competition, winning overall at Dana, Kali Pipeline and now Luxon Swell. Her score, a commanding 19.3 for the competition included a full ten points from one judge on her final round as she amazed the crowd--Even after the 10 was dropped as per scoring rules, she still turned in a performance that was clearly the best in the field of great rounds.

"The surfers at this year's Luxon Swell were all top notch," said sport reporter Greg Martel, who covered the event for The Kalistani Republic. "But none matched the technical excellence of Richards, who has just clearly shown herself to be the surfer who wanted it most. She took chances most of those surfers would never have dreamed of, and her daring paid off bigtime this year. She is the most daring surfer out there on the water this year, and I think whether or not she will repeat this feat next year, she is going to change the sport for a long time into the future."

Her fellow competitors all acknowledged her clear victory as well. Brad Carrol, who won the Men's category with a score of 18.1, but lost to Richards by a full point, said, "I think she has a deathwish, to be honest. But she went out there with no fear and just attacked it. When I started surfing at 12, I think I was taught, you know, avoid the reef, like watch out for this or that. You know, that stuff gets ingrained in you, and in the moment, you may second guess yourself and then its' too late, you know? You miss that wave because it doesn't look like it's gonna break soon enough or whatever. But man, she goes for it, she just does it, like she doesn't have that voice in her head, and I guess this year was just hers. Like the whole year."

Others said Richards encouraged them to be a bit more courageous. Runner up in the women's category, Lakiesha James said, "I watched her from the start and even, you know kind of asked her how she overcomes her fear. She gave me some really good pointers earlier this year and you know, we went surfing together out of competition here on the Swell, and I think I was just really inspired by how hard she went on these waves, and at the Invitational, I just went all in and took a lot of chances, but... yeah, she's the queen, so..."

Richards herself remained humble about her absolute dominance of this year's circuit. "I am just really lucky to have the chance to surf this year. Because you know, well, first of all, like when you think of how like fine tuned you have to be to even win one of these competitions, and like all these folks have all won their competitions in their categories, so it is such an amazing feeling to just be among such amazing athletes. But a lot of it has to do with luck too. I happened to get into a good time out on the water when these awesome waves were coming in from just the right angle to just build and build into something I could really shred up. It's a lot of luck and I am very lucky to be here. And who knows? The average career of a pro-surfer is three seasons... after that it just is too hard to surf against people even just a few years younger than you. But that means I still have two years before I have to get a real jobby job... nobody wants to do that..."

Maybe not, though: Ms. Richards begins her reign as the new Queen of Surf with an endorsement offer from Dah, and another from ODEN-K. "Well, the Dah deal will be modelling their gear, of course, and then they will pay me to surf full time next year. The ODEN stuff, I think... I thinks its a little funny. I guess word got around that I smoke a lot of dah. Hahaha... I don't think ODEN has like, spokesmodels, so I still have to talk to them. They told me to get an agent, but they would really like to work with me. That would be a really cool thing, you know to be the face of ODEN around the world..." She said she has received congratulations from people in the surfing community in Kalistan and the world, including past winners of the Luxon Swell Invitational.

Richards said she plans to keep surfing until the Swell rolls back out for the year and then explore her options. "I earned enough money this year to buy a little bungalow on Luxon Beach," she said. "So I don't have to hitch out from the city. Surfing has really changed my life for the better, and made a lot of stuff possible that maybe I wouldn't have had the chance to do otherwise, and so I think this is a pretty good accomplishment." On winning the Triple Crown, she said, "I'm in good company now with actual Royalty. I think winning it now, after 70 years since it was held by the Princess back in the day, I think that is something I am very proud of. So I'll dedicate it to everyone who believed in me and helped me, and hopefully I can pay that faith and dedication forward to the next person who might just be getting into it, and may someday win this crown for him or herself too."

Congratulations to Ms. Heidi Richards, the new and now reigning Queen of Surf, as she completes the Triple Crown of Surfing.

@TheRepublic