Teen Surfing Phenom Erin Brooks Wants to Surf Like These Two World Champs

Teen surfing phenom Erin Brooks may not be competing in this year's Olympic games at Teahupo'o, but she's moving onwards and upwards.

She won the Hawaiian Islands HIC Haleiwa Pro last December and finished ninth in the Challenger Series.

In a story published today on Olmpics.com, Brooks talks about her surfing heroes and dreams.

Related: 5X World Champ Carissa Moore's New Book is a Love Letter About Surfing

The video, which can be viewed here, is captioned:

"Canada's surfing prodigy Erin Brooks has come into the spotlight for her impressive aerial skills - something she shares in common with her idols and mentors Gabriel Medina and Italo Ferreira.

"Olympics.com spoke to the 16-year-old about the multi-sport training regime that helps her fly high, sharing workout sessions with skateboarding star Sky Brown, and proving the haters wrong."

In the video, she says:

"I would love to see the women surf like the men. That's what we're pushing for with airs and bigger barrels. There's girls ahead of us like Carissa Moore and Steph Gilmore who also inspire us.

"But I really wanna surf like Gabriel Medina and Filipe Toledo. They're so good at everything and that's what I want to be."

She continues about airs, saying she spends a lot of time practicing her rotations on the trampoline.

But when the waves aren't good, she goes to skateparks to practice rotations "over and over again because the pipe is never gonna move, which is nice."

Wavepools, she adds, are good too.

"That's where I learned how to do airs and that's where I got consistent, but then I took it into the ocean quick," she says. "It definitely helps with your timing and where you'll see the section."

Then, she addresses the "haters" who call her a "wavepool kid" and say she can't do airs in the ocean.

But she just uses that as motivation.

"When someone tells me I can't do something, it makes me want to do it that much more," she says.

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