Wade’s The Lastest WSL Drop-In

The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
November 22, 2018
Story by: Amanda Lulham
Photo: Wade Carmichael at Manly. Photo by: Phil Hillyard

Wade’s a breath of fresh hair. He is the bearded battler who has washed dishes and dug ditches in his pursuit of surfing for gold when the sport makes its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2020.

Wade Carmichael, 26, is on track to claim world surfing’s rookie of the year award after making two finals in his first season on the circuit.

Northing has come easy to Carmichael, a former Central Coast lifesaver, in his bid to fund his way on the World Surf League tour.

“It took me five years to get here – and I want to stay here,” said Carmichael, who passion is ocean conservation.

He is a Piping Hot ambassador for Clean Oceans and wears swimwear made from recycled plastic.

“I remember going to the beach for a day when I was young,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to be able to do that in 20 years.”

Carmichael fell just short of making the men’s tour in 2016 and that fuelled his successful qualifying series campaign a year later.

“I always had the belief I could get here,” he said. “It just took a bit longer than I though.” Long enough, that if he wins rookie of the year he will one of the oldest to achieve the feat. Carmichael maintains he is “just like other surfers, just a bit hairier”.

He recently moved from Avoca to the Gold Coast to be closer to the Australian high-performance surfing centre in Casuarina, just 15km south of the border, where he trains and receives coaching.

“It has been pretty amazing to have a facility like this,” Carmichael said,. “It has really helped.

“I never thought about the Olympics but to even have a chance to go would be cool.”

Carmichael, one of the few surfers without a private coach, is now the third-highest ranked Australian on the world tour.

And he has high hopes for success in the final event of the year, the Pipe Masters in Hawaii starting on December 8.

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