When you witness a generational talent, you just know. Thirteen-year-old Leihani Zoric, out of Broken Head, Australia, presents a pretty compelling case in her new edit called No Reception, directed by Chris Moore.
Zoric recently became the youngest ever U-18 ISA World Champion when she won at the World Junior Surfing Games in El Salvador in September after she was called up as a wildcard to the Australian team. Since then, Zoric has also been selected for the Australian open team for the World Surfing Games that will kick off next week in Peru alongside greatest of all time Stephanie Gilmore and two-time World Champion Tyler Wright.
Zoric’s win in El Salvador made her the first Indigenous Australian World Junior Surfing Champion. Leihani is Yued, one of the 14 language groups that make up the Noongar Nation, whose history can be traced back 40,000 years in Australia’s southwest.
“It meant so much to me, just getting to represent my Culture and my Country on the world stage, and getting to show the world who I am, what I stand for, and my surfing,” Leihani said.
“My Culture is a huge part of my identity, and they’ve taught me so much in and out of the water. Getting to fly the Aboriginal flag meant so much to me, especially in El Salvador, because the feeling over there was amazing.”
Leihani’s edit is set in the Maldives and is an entertaining depiction of where she’s at in life, still figuring things out. Her surfing is dynamic, explosive and it’s impossible to tell from her surfing that she was born in 2012. With an edit by Dom Sullivan that clearly draws on early 2000s surf core as a cultural reference, Zoric’s surfing feels both classic and novel. She’s smooth yet powerful on rail, attacking the lip fearlessly and going above the coping with finesse. Leihani’s connection to the ocean is undeniable.
Making her way around the northern atolls by boat, missing calls from her dad and hoisting the odd octopus on board, No Reception is in some ways nostalgic in the way it’s put together, but also feels like a step into the future of women’s surfing. “It was just so cool getting to do all the different scenes. It felt like I was a movie star,” Leihani reflected.
For someone who has won a major global event, Leihani’s competitive career has only really just begun. Without a current ranking on the Australian QS or Pro Junior, her plan for after the World Surfing Games is just to keep working on her surfing and get experience at different locations. It’s experience she’s going to need because Zoric has some pretty big goals. “My plan is that I want to try to qualify for the World Championship Tour in 2029, and I also want to qualify for the LA Olympics,” she said. “My dream or goal for surfing is just to be the greatest athlete I can possibly be. Obviously, I want to have all the cool accolades and stuff, but I also want to be a great person, be really humble and care for others.”
“My number one dream in surfing, well, just in sport, is to become the greatest female athlete of all time. That’s my number one biggest goal,” Leihani says.
Maldives Surf Trips / @surf_maldives