Her second was making it into the water on Monday.
“I was so run down, just floored, and I haven’t had any energy at all in my muscles all week,” she said after a thrilling, three-heat comeback victory over Olympic gold medallist Caroline Marks.
Molly Picklum celebrates becoming world champion on Tuesday.Credit: World Surf League
“I lost all my taste, I was down with fevers, and my body was just fighting and fighting to keep it at bay. The worst of the flu left me pretty quick, but I haven’t had energy all week, I’ve felt pretty awful, and it really took me seven days to get back in the water.”
Just being able to surf after a week of feeling rubbish was a win worth celebrating. So on the eighth day, Picklum simply refused to get out.
For all intents and purposes, neither did Marks. As first past the post in the WSL’s regular season, Picklum sat, watched, and waited on Tuesday’s finals day until her challenger for the title emerged.
As the year’s fourth-placed finisher, Marks had to take down Hawaiians Bettylou Johnson (world No.5) and Gabriela Bryan (No.2), as well as reigning world champion Caitlin Simmers (No.3) in between.
In all, Marks surfed seven 35-minute heats in eight hours. As world No.1, Picklum could have secured the title in her first clash with Marks, while the American was surfing just to push Picklum to a best-of-three showdown.
“She was in form and I got too excited, I lost a little bit of my surfing smarts and chased the win too hard,” Picklum reflects.
Marks’ 12.5-10.5 upset suddenly swung the final in her favour, a fairytale of her own now looming.
“So I just stayed in the water,” Picklum says.
“I took a couple of deep breaths and said ‘right, I’ve had my surf and my warm-up, now it’s time to compete and get the job done’.
“They asked if I wanted to get out, but I was good. I didn’t want to be wasting energy chasing boats around and what not, I just wanted to stay in the water, stay connected with her a bit more, and then go out and dance a little bit more again.”
Crowe, a key confidante for Picklum this year, has seen what comes next.
“Ash Barty, down 5-1 at the Australian Open,” he says of that famous 2022 triumph over Danielle Collins.
Picklum has been the best and most consistent woman on water this season, never finishing worse than ninth across 11 events.
After watching Brazilian Yago Dora win the men’s title from the Cloudbreak channel, Picklum returned to form and delivered a blistering 8.83-point barrel ride.
“That was the dream wave and probably what I was chasing too hard in that first heat,” she says.
After a week and first-up heat where everything that could seemingly go wrong, did, everything then went right.
Marks’ marathon effort took its toll. Picklum had a couple more eight-point rides and easily won the last two heats.
Picklum begins her celebrations in the middle of Cloudbreak.
Credit: World Surf League
The Central Coast product then screamed herself hoarse before being serenaded by singing Fijian schoolkids, showered with beer, and presented the WSL trophy.
Crowe watched on from a Qantas flight, grateful to the crew who kept the Wi-Fi and live stream from Fiji running while the plane touched down.
Barty kept his phone running hot, all the while.
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Picklum has placed plenty of stock in Crowe’s offerings all season. She’s always been open with her doubts, aspirations, abilities, and how she wrestles with each.
Crowe has seen Barty and eight-time world champion Gilmore do the same, with Picklum long looking toward two of Australia’s greatest ever-female athletes.
“Steph’s been such a huge role model with an incredible killer competitive instinct, but then also just such a wonderful human being as well,” Crowe says.
“Ash has that in spades, too, and you see Molly doing that – I think she’s taken those core values from Ash and Steph and applied it to herself. She’s not defined by her surfing, she’s a good person first.”
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