The annual Nissan Super Girl Surf Pro in Oceanside is the biggest female surf event in the world. This year, 148 women from across the globe competed for the iconic Super Girl cape. 15-year-old Eden Walla is the 2024 Super Girl winner.
Surfer Reid Van Wagoner is a local competitor from Carlsbad.
"Get to surf my backyard, get to have all my friends and family come here and support me through this whole contest, which was amazing," Van Wagoner said. "I've been coming here since I was a little girl because I'm five minutes away from here, so it's really cool."
The Super Girl competition is what sparked her love for surfing.
"I came when I was about six years old, and I just started doing my first contest," she said. "I met Bethany Hamilton here and she was telling me about her surf career, and it really just like showed me that I can do it and that I wanted to be a surfer when I grew up."
Last year's Super Girl winner, Alyssa Spencer from Encinitas, made it to the quarter finals this year and finished in equal fifth place. She was up against the youngest surfer in the competition, 13-year-old Ruby Springfellow, who finished in third.
"The representation for women in surfing has grown exponentially over the last 18 years since we've been doing this event," Super Girl CEO Rick Bratman said. "The first year we struggled to find 16 women competing and now we're at 150."
More than 75,000 people came out over the weekend to enjoy the free festival, concerts and watch these women give it their all in the ocean.
"I love the Super Girl in particular just because there’s so much women empowerment around it, whether it's with surfing or any other sport or interest, that’s one of the amazing things just loving what you want to do and being empowered as a woman," Surfer Vaihitimahana Inso from Hawaii said.