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Cherub-faced regularfooter from Lima, Peru; winner of the 2004 World Championship Tour, and the first pro tour winner from Latin America. Her title, the LA Times reported, "stamped Mulanovich as the first of a new generation of powerful and technically sound young surfers to wear the crown."

Mulanovich was born (1983) in Lima, Peru, and raised in nearby Punta Hermosa, a village close to a series of pointbreaks. Her mother ran a beachside smoothie stand and her father worked in a fish-processing factory. The Spanish-speaking Mulanovich attended a British-run girls' school and became fluent in both English and French. At age three she began bodyboarding and at nine she began riding stand-up; her older brother Herbert was a national surfing champion.

Surfing has traditionally been a man's sport in Peru, even more so than in the rest of the world, and a lack of female competition meant that Mulanovich spent most of her amateur career surfing against boys. Magoo de la Rosa, seven-time national Peruvian champion, coached Mulanovich, and was at least partly responsible for her development into a quick, powerful surfer, able to leverage her compact frame (5' 3", 130 pounds) to devastating effect in small and mid-sized waves, especially while riding backside. She began entering pro contests at age 13; two years later she was featured in Bill Ballard's all-women surf video 

In 2000, at age 17, Mulanovich placed third in the women's division of the biannual World Surfing Games; she returned to win the Games in 2002, and the following season, her first on the world tour, she was named rookie of the year and finished #7 in the ratings. By now a sports hero in Peru, Mulanovich was a presenter at the 2003 VH1 Latin American Music Awards, watched by an estimated one billion viewers worldwide.

Mulanovich got off to a slow start in 2004, placing ninth in the opening contest. She then won three consecutive events—in Fiji, Tahiti, and France—and with only three stops left on the schedule she coasted to the title, finishing a full 900 points ahead of runner-up Rochelle Ballard, and dethroning good friend and six-time world champ Layne Beachley. Rightly viewed as one of pro surfing's sweetest personalities, Mulanovich also swore like a longshoreman. The 2004 season-ending pro contests in Hawaii featured TV coverage and in-water microphones, and during the Roxy Pro finals, when it was announced that Mulanovich had won the title, her heavily censored reply was, "Fuck, I'm the fucking world champ! What the fuck is going on? Fuck!" Weeks later, back in Peru, a national holiday was declared in her honor.

Mulanovich was a title threat for the next several seasons, finishing second in 2005 (to Chelsea Georgeson) and 2007 (to Stephanie Gilmore), before slipping slowly down the rankings to 17th in 2013. She retired from the world tour that year with 10 WCT wins to her credit. Six years later, in Japan, the 36-year-old Mulanovich beat four-time WCT champion Carrisa Moore to win her second ISA world title.

Mulanovich has been featured in a small number of surf videos, including 

, a biopic chronicling the rise of Peru's most famous surfer, was released in 2008. Mulanovich was presented with ESPN's "ESPY" award in 2005 for Best Female Action Sports Athlete. Starting in 2005, she won four consecutive 

Magazine Poll Awards for top female surfer. In 2007, Mulanovich was inducted into the Surfer's Hall of Fame at Huntington Beach.

In a surprise Instagram post in 2020, Mulanovich announced that she and her partner Camilla Toro of Venezuela had become first-time parents.

Mulanovich, Sofia

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