Hawaiian surfer Carissa Moore is the first woman to win gold in surfing at the Olympics.
The 28-year-old U.S. athlete took home the top prize on July 27, edging out South Africa's Bianca Buitendag for the Olympic gold medal. The event lasted three days at Tsurigasaki Beach in Japan, about 40 miles from Tokyo, where the competitors faced rough waters due to Tropical Storm Nepartak.
This is the first time that surfing has been included at the Summer Olympics. On the men's side, Brazilian surfer Italo Ferreira earned the gold medal.
Moore broke down in tears on her surf board after the final buzzer sounded, and then blew a kiss to her fans at the shore, according to The New York Times.
"I feel super blessed, super fortunate. It's been an incredible experience," Moore said after her win, per Olympics.com. "It's been a crazy couple of days, a little bit of a rollercoaster of emotions just trying to figure out the break, find my rhythm, learning how to trust myself without my family here."
"I woke up this morning and it wasn't a dream," the athlete captioned her Instagram, adding, "This was such a special moment for surfing. I'm so proud of all the athletes for how they showed up the last few days, put it all on the line, and shared our sport in the best way possible."
She concluded, "Dad it's been fun training with you for this moment. Guys we did it! This is for all of you. For the USA. For Hawaii."
Moore is a four-time World Surf League champion, but she never imagined she could be an Olympic athlete. "As a little girl it wasn't even on my radar because it wasn't a possibility," she told E! News earlier this month.
The International Olympic Committee voted in August 2016 to add surfing to the Tokyo Games.
"That's when it really became a dream and something that I really wanted to strive for," Moore told E! News. "Just the idea of being a part of surfing's debut in the Olympics and then being able to be a part of the Games—that's the main stage. That's sports, you know. There's been so many beautiful moments that have gone down in history at that event, so I'm really excited to be a part of it."
She has been surfing competitively since 2004 and gives "credit" to her dad Chris Moore for believing in her. She said, "He saw the potential in me that made me believe in myself."
Moore still finds that she's "extremely hard on myself," but is reminding herself to "laugh a little bit more, have a little more fun. Take the time to celebrate other people's achievements, too."
As she explained to E!, "Even if you don't do as well as you'd like, you feel good about celebrating other people and lifting other people up. And I think that's a really beautiful thing. I think a lot of the time in my younger journey, I was so focused on myself and so focused on doing what I needed to do, that I at times lost the joy. And the joy comes from sharing it with people."
Read more about her road to Olympic gold here, and get to know the Olympic surfers representing the United States by scrolling below.