Bondi’s only world surfing champion finally gets a statue

47 minutes ago 2

For as long as the sun rises over Bondi Beach, there will be a reminder of the freckle-faced young woman who went from being one of the few females scrapping for waves on her home break to world surfing champion in 1993.

A bronze statue of Pauline Menczer, whose professional career had been largely forgotten until the 2021 documentary Girls Can’t Surf revealed the many obstacles she had to overcome to win her world title, was unveiled on Friday afternoon.

Surfer Pauline Menczer with her statue at the southern end of Bondi Beach.

It shows her in a typical pose from her early life – scanning the waves from the southern end of the beach, surfboard at her side, holding the skateboard she would ride down the hill from her family home.

“It just feels amazing,” Menczer, 55, said of the honour before a rain-affected ceremony at Bondi.

Girls Can’t Surf director Chris Nelius launched a community campaign that raised $150,000 for the statue after Waverley Council approved its installation.

“As I was cutting the film together and going for a surf at Bondi in the morning before work, I thought: No one realises that this woman is the only person from Bondi, male or female, to ever win a world title,” he said.

When the documentary was released, Menczer was driving a school bus north of Byron Bay for a living, while dealing with a rare autoimmune disease that caused painful blisters and burns on her skin.

Although she loved driving the bus for the time she spent with the schoolkids, it was a modest life after two decades as a livewire professional on the early women’s tour.

In a remarkable week for Australian surfing, the ceremony follows seven-time world champion Layne Beachley claiming the Dawn Award at a Sport Australia Hall of Fame dinner and eight-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore announcing she would return to the world championship tour next year to chase a ninth title.

Menczer, who grew up with a single mother of four after her taxi driver father was murdered, was sometimes abused by male surfers in the Bondi waves as a teenager.

During her professional career, she had to deal with crippling rheumatoid arthritis, a lack of sponsors given she was far from the blonde surfie chick ideal at the time, the sport’s boy’s club mentality and fears about revealing she was gay.

On the day of the tour’s climactic contest in 1993, Menczer’s arthritis was so bad that she doubted she could even surf. But when the hooter went, she said her determination to win and the adrenaline made her forget about the pain until she was announced as world champion.

Menczer received no prizemoney, just a trophy she later realised was broken.

Cathy Weiszmann’s statue is at the south end of Bondi Beach.

When supporters ran a GoFundMe campaign to raise the $25,000 she should have received for her world title win, Menczer gave away everything over that total, $35,000, to people she considered more deserving, including a father of five in the Philippines with the same autoimmune disease and a disabled surfers’ association.

Living at Brunswick Heads, she now works as a part-time carer for a man with multiple sclerosis and advocates for making beaches more accessible. “I’m always fighting ill health, but I’m soldiering on,” she said.

When Nelius asked if she wanted a statue, Menczer was initially reluctant.

“I just thought, I don’t need a statue,” she said. “I don’t have a big head. But after hundreds of beautiful messages I got after the movie, I realised how important it is to share your story.”

One was from someone who was suicidal from the pain of their arthritis.

“After getting messages like that, I realised this statue is really important if it inspires just one person,” Menczer said. “When you’re unwell, you really feel like you’re on your own. But when you hear about other people [with a similar disease], you can reach out.”

Menczer went through photos from her early life with sculptor Cathy Weiszmann, who has previously created sculptures of sports stars Adam Goodes, Belinda Clark, Johnny Warren and Betty Cuthbert among others, to decide on a pose.

“We wanted to capture youth and determination and just the happiness of being able to surf,” Weiszmann said. She had learnt from getting to know Menczer that “surfing is a special thing that you do with your soul”.

The statue is on the path at the southern end of the beach.

“Just a couple of metres away, I used to stand on the hill and check the surf,” Menczer said. “So it’s like I’m permanently checking the surf now.”

When Menczer last surfed at Bondi, earlier this year, she was struck by how much it had changed.

The plaque that honours Pauline Menczer by the statue.

“I actually couldn’t believe that I got called on to waves,” she said. “Before I had to hassle and be hard-core. So it feels like I’ve earnt respect there now.”