📍Manly NSW 2095, Australia
1972 – 1990“Layne Collette Beachley was born in Sydney in May 1972 and grew up in Manly, the famous beach suburb on Sydney's Northern Beaches, between the harbour and the Pacific, with its long, Norfolk pine-lined ocean beach. She was adopted as a baby, and her adoptive mother, Valerie, died when Layne was six; she was raised by her adoptive father, Neil. When she was eight she learned that she had been adopted, and that her birth mother had been an unmarried teenager, and the discovery left her feeling abandoned and determined to prove herself. She started surfing at four on Manly Beach, and the ocean became her refuge and her proving ground. She was a tough, fiercely competitive girl, often the only girl in the water among the boys, and she surfed every day before and after school, at Manly, Queenscliff and the beaches along the Northern Beaches, building strength and confidence. She has said that her drive to be the best came from her need to feel worthy, and she poured everything into surfing. At sixteen she turned professional, working several jobs to pay her way on tour. She went on to win seven world surfing titles, including six in a row from 1998 to 2003, a record, and became one of the first women to ride giant waves, surfing huge waves at Waimea Bay and Jaws. She founded the Aim for the Stars Foundation to support girls and women in pursuing their dreams, and she became chair of Surfing Australia. The Northern Beaches honour her on their sporting honour roll, and Manly is proud of the girl who learned to surf on its beach.”
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