Broken Head teenager Leihani Zoric has become Australia’s first Indigenous World Junior Champion.
“I’m going to come first,” said Ms Zoric before she left for the ISA World Junior Surfing Championship in El Salvador earlier this year.
Conviction like that is one thing. Having it at 13 is another. But confidence is something Australia’s new U18 World Junior Champion seems to have in spades.
“I repeated to myself 100 times a day ‘I’m the new World Champ’ so when it happened it wasn’t so much a surprise but more a recognition of all the hard work I’d put in,” said Ms Zoric.
A prolonged sickness the week before did not deter her. Losing simply wasn’t an option for the teenager from Broken Head, near Byron Bay. She took out the U18 Girls division while competing three age divisions above her own, with a highest score of 16.00 in the final heat.
She earned her place on the Australian team after a breakout year. Ms Zoric won the 2026 Indigenous Surfing Titles Open Women’s division and reached the final of the Stab High Ladybirds specialty air event.
Her win made her one of three Australian individual gold medallists, alongside Locana Cullen of Newport and Lucy Darragh of Gerringong. She was also one of the youngest athletes on the 12-strong team.
That team, known as the Irukandjis, won its third consecutive ISA World Junior Team Title after gold in 2024 and 2025. It is a record 10th title, making the Irukandjis the winningest national team in ISA World Junior history.
Competition ran for more than a week at La Bocana and El Sunzal. Australia took gold in three of the four possible divisions. Ben Zanatta Creagh of Dee Why won silver, while Ocean Lancaster of Merewether and Rio Luther Barr of Bellingen won bronze.
Head Coach Pete Duncan and coach Jade Wheatley led the team. Ms Wheatley has now guided the squad to all three titles.
Even as a child, Ms Zoric told her kindergarten teacher she wanted to be the first Indigenous World Champion. Now that she has done it, what is next?
“My goal is to be the most successful female athlete of all time,” said Ms Zoric. With the Brisbane Olympics around the corner, she might be right on time.
She has recently been named the youngest member of Team Australia at the upcoming 2026 ISA World Surfing Games. There she joins World Champions Stephanie Gilmour and Jack Robinson in a competition that acts as a critical qualification pathway for the LA28 Olympic Games. But a star-studded line-up does not seem to faze her. She is there to do a job.
Perhaps her strong sense of self can be traced back to when she was just two days old and her parents took her for a surf in the shallows at Broken Head. Or perhaps it was meeting Carissa Moore, now her mentor, at seven years old. That meeting cemented her love of the sport, and she later travelled to Hawaii to stay with Ms Moore and her family.
Or maybe it is her deep-rooted connection to her Yued heritage and mob. The Irukandjis name was gifted to Surfing Australia by the Yirrganydji people of North Queensland.
“My culture shapes me as a person and an athlete. It was so cool to represent them and bring the title home for them,” said Ms Zoric.
In 2025, she was invited to become an ambassador for the Australian Institute of Sport’s Share A Yarn initiative. The program creates safe spaces for First Nations athletes to connect, yarn and strengthen their sense of identity beyond high-performance sport.
Helping others thrive is in her DNA. Despite the impressive accolades, Ms Zoric’s true ambition is to uplift those around her and create a positive culture in her professional and personal life.
“I want people to know me as someone who is humble and a good person to be around, someone who makes you feel happy when you’re around them and like you belong in this world,” said Ms Zoric.
She has put her experience to good use by setting up Lei’s Lu’au, an all-girls surfing event held in her hometown with a focus on manifestation and positivity.
So what is next for the athlete who is seemingly conquering it all?
“Some days I just feel like being a couch potato and watching The Simpsons,” said Ms Zoric.
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