American Carissa Moore won the first women’s surfing shortboard event in Olympic history, taking down South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag, 14.93- 8.46 in the gold medal match.
The beginning of the match was low scoring as each surfer looked for the right opportunity to score points.
But with just 20 minutes left in the match, Moore called her shot with a 7.33 on her second wave to pull ahead of Buitendag.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
Feeling the pressure, the South African surfer scored a 2.40 to try and close the gap, but Moore remained calm nailing a 7.60 on her next wave to erase her low previous score and win the historic gold.
Moore is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii and a four-time World Surf League World Champion. She entered Tokyo as the No.1 ranked surfer in the world.
The state of Hawaii even named a day after her declaring January 4 to be Carissa Moore Day.
American Caroline Marks came in fourth in the event falling to Japan's Amuro Tsuzuki in the bronze medal match.
