Women's Performance Awards Nominee - Bianca Valenti

Bianca Valenti, San Francisco, California.

Longtime Maverick's surfer Bianca Valenti has become powerful and dominant at Mavericks, the somewhat ruthless big wave surf spot that has very few female takers. She has been surfing out there for a while now, and has a local crew looking after her to make sure she gets her waves and doesn't get burned by blow-ins.

Bianca started her big wave career as a longboarder, competing in events across the country, but after one particular rousing session at Ocean Beach she decided that big wave surfing was what she wanted to do. She surfs Mavericks whenever it's breaking pretty much, and when she heads down on vacation to Mexico she always takes a board along in case she might score Puerto or maybe Killers.

Bianca is fairly new on the WSL scene and has set the performance bar in the new year. There are more female surfers who are bubbling under and determined to get a shot on a Big Wave Tour, but in the meantime she continues training at Mavericks, which is a pretty good training ground for a potential Big Wave Tour surfer. As the female side of big wave surfing progresses, Bianca will be one of the surfers who will be in the front of the sport, leading the way.