Beachley, Layne (1972 – )
Lively, hard-charging Australian regularfoot surfer from Dee Why, Sydney; winner of seven world championship titles, including six consecutive from 1998-2003 (her seventh came in 2006), and regarded as one of the sport's greatest female big-wave riders. "She trains, focuses, paddles out with a pleasant smile and fillets the opposition with roughly the compassion of a shark," surf journalist Nick Carroll said of Beachley in 1999. "And the best thing about her is that she'd laugh her guts out a...