Surfers gathered at the Gold Coast’s Kirra Beach on Saturday to pay tribute to Australia surfing icon, Phyllis O’Donell.
O’Donell was honoured with a paddle out at the popular surf location over the weekend, 60 years after she was crowned as the first-ever Women’s World Surfing Champion during a time when surfing was almost exclusively male-dominated.
Kirra Beach is one of the world’s premier surf breaks, and the place where O’Donell began learning to surf at the age of 23. She had been surfing for four years when she won the ISA Surfing World Champion in Manly, becoming the world’s first female to do so, in 1964.
Last month, O’Donell passed away aged 87. Her friend, fellow surfer Josette Lagardere, spoke to ABC News, explaining the legacy she has left for female competitive surfers of Australia.
“No-one knew about Australia, but when Phylly and [male surfer] Midget Farrelly both won a world title that year, it just put Australia on the map,” Lagardere, a Californian native, said.
“It put women’s surfing on the map. She was a good surfer and could handle anything. She became a very aggressive woman in the surf because she had to fend her way to enjoy a sport she thought everyone should enjoy.”
Throughout O’Donell’s competitive surfing career, she won eight Queensland State titles and three National titles. In 1972, O’Donell stepped back from competitive surfing and focused on championing gender equality for female surfers.
In 1983, she helped establish the Women’s Surfing Association, a now-defunct competition series which successfully pushed the national sporting organisation of Surfing Australia to improve their conditions for female surfers.
“[The group] got bigger allocations in international competitions, more competitions and better wave selection,” Chairperson of the Surf World Gold Coast, Rod Brooks said.
“Before that, they were made to compete when the onshore wind came up and the waves got all choppy.”
O’Donell was also a founding member of Surfing Queensland (ASAQ) and a volunteer secretary for Surfing Queensland
In 1996, she was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame, becoming the second woman to do so. In 2014, she was inducted into Huntington Beach’s Surfing Walk of Fame. In 2022, she was inducted as a Surfing Queensland Life Member in honour of her outstanding contribution to the surfing community in Queensland and internationally.
Lagardere described the latter year’s of her friend’s life as “very active.”
“She was a gym junkie… and enjoyed life to the max,” she said. “She was a character and stubborn in her own ways, but she loved attention and anyone in Kingscliff would know her because she loved opera singing. She’d drive around and turn it up in the car and you would hear her all the way up the block playing it. She was just remarkable.”
In a statement published shortly after her death, Surfing Queensland wrote: “We are honoured to have had her compete along our beautiful coastline, leaving a legacy forever woven into the history of surfing”
“Phyllis will forever be known for paving the initial pathway for all female competitive surfers.”
In 2018, O’Donell described herself as “a late bloomer” — “I don’t really know why I took up surfing but I did,” she said. “When I first started… I could hardly paddle.”
“In those days when you were surfing with men, you had to be aggressive because there were only a hand full of women on boards at the beach,” she continued.
“If a guy ever purposely rode in front of me then I’d push him onto the rocks. I used to love surfing alongside dolphins and have always felt like the beach belonged to everyone, even if not everyone in those days had access to it. If a girl or bloke needed help as a surfer, then I’d help them.”