Bondi, Sydney, November 21 – On a windswept afternoon in Bondi, the beach that shaped her, 1993 World Champion Pauline Menczer – alongside friends, family and fans in the Bondi Pavilion – celebrated the unveiling of a life-size bronze version of her younger self above the lineup.
Skateboard tucked under one arm, surfboard under the other, the Cathy Weiszmann-sculpted, crowdfunded statue captures Pauline as the freckle-faced Bondi grom who used to bomb the hill down to South Bondi before paddling out with the local heavyweights.
Today, that grom is immortalised in bronze – Australia’s first surfer to be commemorised in a free-standing statue, and Bondi’s only world champion.
From a rattly trophy to centre stage
Menczer’s 1993 world title famously came with no prize cheque and what she’s described as a “shonky” rattling trophy instead of a major celebration. In her speech in the Pavilion’s Seagull Room, she traced that moment back to a childhood where surfing was a lifeline as much as a sport.
“I was a scrappy little grom growing up in Ocean Street with my mum, Grace, and three brothers,” she said. “My dad was killed when I was five years old, and so the ocean just became our playing field. It was our dining room, everything, and it was all free.”
Support from her school and community helped get her onto the amateur circuit, but life on tour was far from glamorous.
Even then, Menczer said her mum had a simple rule that stuck.
“There’s a positive in every negative,” Menczer told the room. “We didn’t have much growing up, but I found surfing and that was free. I had arthritis, but that made me appreciate every moment. I didn’t get financial sponsors because I didn’t have the right beach-babe look or the blue eyes, but I could speak my mind and call out the outrageous inequities in women’s surfing and make noise without getting in trouble by sponsors.”
Even with so much weight behind her legacy, Menczer made it clear the statue stands for more than one trophy-less world title.
“This statue isn’t just about me, it’s for everyone,” she said. “Anyone who was told they can’t or shouldn’t, the battlers and those who have experienced adversity and challenges in their lives and health. I want it to inspire. If one kid walks past and says, ‘If she can do it, I can do it,’ I’ll be stoked.”
A Bondi world champ, a statewide message
Menczer remains the only surfer, male or female, to bring a world title back to Bondi. For groms paddling out at South Bondi today, the idea that “our beach has a world champ” is no longer just something you hear in club folklore – it’s welded into the landscape.
Her story, though, stretches far beyond one stretch of sand, to every boardriders club and coastal town where kids are still wondering if there’s a place for them in the sport.
For Bondi Boardriders, the statue is also a marker of how far surf culture has come.
President and Contest Director Victoria Austin said the area and the sport’s past wasn’t always welcoming for women and girls.
“The history from before my time wasn’t very good – it was very localistic, very male-orientated,” she said. “Over the last ten or so years though, with Pauline’s story being brought more into the light, the overall reception of women in the water has improved dramatically.”
She’s seen that change reflected in the numbers as well.
“For our club in particular, our women’s division has at least doubled in the time I’ve been with Bondi Boardriders,” Austin said. “We encourage girlfriends, kids, daughters. We want it to be family-orientated. We’re looking for the women to rise.”
Austin was frank that there’s still work to do.
“I still feel like a woman in a man’s world sometimes,” she said. “There are definitely still some barriers in place, but with things like Girls Can’t Surf, this Pauline statue, the RISE initiative and everything that’s going on, it’s really supporting the girls coming up. There’s still a way to go, but it’s a good feeling to see everything happen.”
First impressions: A Bondi woman over the banks
Former WSL Chief of Sport and proud sports equality advocate Jessi Miley-Dyer said the statue sends a powerful message to anyone seeing Bondi for the first time with a board under their arm.
“It’s pretty cool,” she said. “When I was a kid, I would never have thought that, of all the statues for a surfer, it would be a woman.”
Looking towards the South Bondi banks, she said the impact goes beyond just women and girls.
“The fact there’s a woman overlooking the surf – it doesn’t only speak to beginners and women who come down and try for the first time,” Miley-Dyer said. “I think it kind of says it for everyone. I love it. I think she really deserves it.”
A moment in time for women’s sport
Back in the Seagull Room, as her speech drew to a close, Menczer zoomed out to the bigger picture of women’s sport, noting that in the same week fellow World Champion Layne Beachley received The Dawn Award from the Sport Australia Hall of Fame and Stephanie Gilmore announced her return to the Championship Tour, the statue at South Bondi felt less like an isolated honour and more like part of a wider shift.
“Women’s sport’s on fire,” she said. “The girls are doing air 360s when we were told women wouldn’t ever be able, and this is happening now because we encourage, support and invest in women’s sport. The possibilities are endless.”
Then she brought it back to the room and the community that made the bronze possible.
“A big thank you to all the community for doing this,” she said. “I feel so loved… it’s just so wonderful to know that you have a community that cares about you so much, and I’m well and truly feeling the love.”
When the formalities wrapped up in the Seagull Room, the crowd drifted out through the Pavilion and along the promenade towards South Bondi to see the bronze in place above the sand.
There, with the chunky afternoon peaks still rolling in beneath her, the kid with the skateboard and the surfboard under her arm finally took her permanent spot in Bondi’s skyline – watching over the next wave of champions from NSW and beyond.
