Ian Walsh—who was named one of today’s 20 greatest athletes in adventure sports in a special September 2005 edition of “Outside Magazine”—is one of the world’s hugest surfing talents. Not only in new-school events, but also on monster waves.
It was at the age of nine that Ian Walsh first stood on a surfboard. Up to then he’d been involved in baseball and football like every American boy, and even—a bit more unusually—dabbled in soccer. But once he rode his first wave, Ian was lost forever to the world of land-bound sports: he spent practically every free moment on the water, and during the school term he’d often get up before sunrise to catch some waves before the morning bell. Living on the Hawaiian island of Maui, like Ian does, can be a very good thing for a surfing career: the best surf spots are practically on your doorstep. The only problem is, it’s not just your doorstep—plowing your way through the dense ranks of surfing talents to the very top is perhaps more difficult than anywhere else in the world.
Riding the Monster Wave
In any case, Ian’s rise to the top was pretty swift. At age 16 he was already part of Hawaii’s elite surfing scene. And in the local new-school events, which feature tricks like airs or other maneuvers, Ian was virtually unbeatable. But he was drawn to higher calling, in particular to higher waves. In search of the ultimate monster wave, he got lucky at Jaws—a spot on the northern coast of Maui—on 10 January 2004: his ride on a wave nearly twenty meters high was awarded second place at the 2004 Billabong XXL Awards and third place at the 2003/2004 International Towsurfer Awards. But the same session also taught him how close together triumph and danger can lie: Ian got swallowed by another monster wave, and it was a few terrifying moments in the darkness until he was spit out of it. Even so, his take on the experience is mainly a positive one: “It’s good to know that I can take a few bombs on my head and still survive. The whole thing just made me that much hungrier for bigger waves.”
Family Sport
Ian was born in 1983, and he officially went pro in 2001. For him, that means spending about nine months a year traveling from spot to spot, from event to event. He’s regarded as a perfectionist with the ability to concentrate on every detail that’s important in his sport. Even so, when it comes to big waves—a discipline in which experience is at least as important as talent—he’s still among the rookies (Hawaiian compatriot Pete Cabrinha, for example, who won the 2004 Billabong XXL Awards with his world-record ride on a 21-meter wave, is 22 years his senior). But insiders are predicting that Ian will be on top of the world ranking before long. In its special September 2005 edition “Faces”, the renowned “Outside Magazine” has already called him one of the 20 greatest athletes competing in adventure sports today.
And Ian might be getting company up on the top of the sport soon in the form of his three younger siblings: Luke Walsh is already traveling the world with his big brother, and the twins Shaun and D.K.—eight years younger—will be at Jaws in a few years too, to hear Ian tell it: “It’s crazy how fast they learn!”