Justine Dupont
French athlete Justine Dupont has been at the pinnacle of big-wave surfing for a number of years and is well on her way to a spot in the GOAT conversation.
The 2022/23 season was stamped with Dupont’s authority. She’s been a mainstay at Nazaré, where she bases herself full-time, making her mark on every major swell at the Portuguese big-wave mecca and ranging out on strike missions as the conditions call for it.
Another breakthrough moment for Justine came on January 13, 2023, when she got the call to join a clandestine mission to the Cortes Bank, a mysterious shallow reef located 100 miles off the coastline of Southern California.
It was there while filming for season three of the HBO docuseries 100 Foot Wave that she dominated the proceedings, connecting with a couple of perfect, glassy righthand walls in the 70-foot range that were the biggest of the trip.
Dupont’s furious year-long performance level made her the runaway winner of the 2023 Surfer of the Year for women.
Nathan Florence
Nathan Florence of Haleiwa, Hawaii, was the recipient of the 2023 Surfer of the Year Award in the men’s division. If ever there was a worthy champion in this category, it was Florence, who spent the year traveling non-stop on his own personal “Slab Tour,” obsessed with chasing each massive swell and meeting it where the waves would be not only big, but thick and nasty as they come.
Nathan’s body of work for the big-wave season included some fine pits at Puerto Escondido, massive Jaws drops (including one that broke his back), and a cavalcade of epic barrels in the frigid waters of Ireland to cap it all off.
The Surfer of the Year in the Big Wave Challenge has become the de facto world champion of big-wave surfing, and there’s little doubt that the man who put in the most work, racked up the biggest airfare expense tab, and fully earned the 2023 Score Lord Sweepstakes was Nathan Florence.