The Tour

nineteen / racing

"You all good?" Michael, the journalist for Surfer Magazine checked as I adjusted my headphones over my ears.

"Yeah, let's do it."

"I'm Michael and I have the pleasure of being joined here today by River Lancer," he adjusted his voice to a more professional tone, "River just completed her first year on the Championship Tour, and after finishing fourth she is now up for rookie of the year. Thanks for joining us River, how have the past few weeks been for you?"

I laughed slightly. "They've been a wild ride, to say the least, but it's been a very cool experience."

"How have things been since the news broke of your nomination? Was the reaction what you expected?" Michael questioned.

"I would say that it has been both similar and different than what I expected. On one hand, the professional surfing community isn't the largest thing in the world, so I feel like most people knew of me before I even qualified on the tour. Still, since the nomination for rookie of the year I've gotten a lot of messages from surfers that I've never talked to before, and some of them I've looked up to for a long time, so that has been cool."

"Now, you may not bring this up, but over here we've also been checking you out on social media and have noticed that you may have a few more followers over there..."

I laughed again, surprised that the conversation had ended up here. "Yeah, I think I've gotten a couple thousand more followers over the past week, which has been funny to watch. I think that part of it is also funny because clearly the nomination was like a stamp of approval that I actually deserved their attention, so that has been interesting. We'll see if I'm able to keep the content up to appease the followers though."

"That is pretty interesting. I've heard you mention before that being a professional athlete has always been a dream of yours, can you tell us about what it has been like to live that out?"

"It's been more than I had ever dreamed of. There are obviously some things that get hard to balance between your career and your personal life, but overall it was an amazing experience and everyone that was there was very gracious towards me."

Michael smiled, "That's great to hear. Has anything been different than you expected?"
"Growing up I always dreamed of being a pro surfer, as you mentioned, but I wasn't sure how that would work out financially as a woman. A couple of years ago the WSL announced equal prize money between both male and female competitors, and that has been a huge blessing to me as well as many other women on tour. The WSL is on the forefront of the fight for equal pay as one of the first international organizations to do this, and that's been an honor to be a part of.

"Definitely, it's great that you guys are getting the pay that you deserve," Michael responded, "Well, it's been great to have you with us today River. We wish you the best of luck at the awards ceremony, and we'll be rooting for you here at Surfer Magazine."

"Thanks so much for having me," I said before removing the headphones and sitting back from the mic.

"Okay, we're off the tape now. Thanks so much for coming on River, it was great and we'd love to have you back sometime," Michael took my headset with a smile.

"Yeah no problem, I appreciate the opportunity," I responded before grabbing my stuff and preparing to leave.

"So, it's probably a pretty obvious answer, but how are you actually feeling about the awards? He asked, clearly curious about whether I had any thoughts that I hid from the public.

"I mean I'm genuinely very excited. We'll see what happens, I'm not counting on anything, that's for sure. My family is coming out though so it will be fun to have them all around."