Oceanside’s Caitlin Simmers earned a spot on the coveted World Tour and spent the year surfing against the best of the best.
She dominated against more experienced surfers, with strong enough results to have a shot at a world title.
Not to mention the 18-year-old surf phenom landed on Team USA and will compete at the 2024 Olympics.
With those feats, it’s no surprise Simmers was named “Rookie of the Year” by the World Surf League.
While she wasn’t able to clinch the world title during September’s finals at Lower Trestles in north San Diego County, she put the surf world on notice that she’s a contender. If Simmers is able to claim a championship in coming years, she’ll be the only other San Diego surfer since Debbie Beacham, of La Jolla, in 1982, to claim the prestigious title.
“I don’t know if it’s soaked in yet,” Simmer said while on a rare stint home a few weeks ago. “It still doesn’t feel real.”
Simmers’ love for the sea came from childhood beach trips to Oceanside with her parents and younger brother Timothy, first starting off on a bodyboard before graduating to a surfboard, she said.
“They didn’t really force anything to happen, we were just always at the beach,” Simmers said.
It was her sibling rivalry with her brother, just one year younger, that helped light her fire, she said.
“That’s probably part of the reason I’m so competitive, because of my brother. We always competed and wanted to be better than each other,” she said. “Even today, he’s so good at surfing and pushes me. I want to be better than my brother.”
Simmers was about 11 when she started entering competitions, she said.
“The first contest I did, I made one heat. I lost the second one, but I really was so happy I made the first heat,” she said. “I definitely fell in love with competing then for the first time. I just started doing competitions and then it worked out for me. It was never what I needed to do. I loved to do…
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