Name	Lisa Andersen
Height	5’6"
Naionality	American
Date of Birth	March 8, 1969
Place of Birth	Ormond Beach, Florida
Famous for

Lisa Andersen is one of these sportswomen and sportsmen that have brought big changes to their sport and have made it evolve.
Her great talent allowed her to break existing barriers and to make her way to success. She's not only one of the most charismatic women surfer, but also the most successful. In addition to managing a top level sports carrier, she also dedicates her energy to bringing up two children. She's often compared with Kelly Slater, the 6 times men world surfing champion, for their incredible results and the way they manage their professional life. Like him (for the men's division), she is the best paid female surfer ever and the most famous worldwide. And they are both from Florida. Actually, they are the two surfing icons of the last 10 years.

The story of Lisa began on the 8th of March 1969 in Ormond Beach, Florida, USA. She started surfing at the age of 13 and, at this time, she was the only girl surfing in her entire hometown. Indeed, in the early 80's the women surfing was still underground, and surfing in general was the property of men. But she worked hard to settle down and impress her peers with her smooth but aggressive style. At 16, as her parents were not very enthusiastic with her new passion, she decided to move to Huntington Beach, California to continue on the way she had chosen and to be able to train with the best surfers of America. Then, she entered amateur competitions and won 35 National Scholastic Surfing Association trophies in 8 months and, later, the US Championships at Sebastien Inlet in 1987. After this victory, she turned pro and finished her first year on the tour at the 12th rank and was elected as Rookie of the Year. She won her first pro events in 1990 in Australia, but she got big problems of concentration on a whole year and was unable to be regular from a competition to another. In 1993, on the 1st of August, she gave birth to a first child, her daughter Erika. And only a month later,she reached a final in Japan. This birth certainly gave her more concentration and a different point of view on the way to handle contests in a season.

Then, in 1994, began the reign of the new surfing queen that was on the point to be world famous and to become the inspiration for a whole generation of surfing girls. Indeed, she won her first World Championship Tour title despite back pains that kept her from surfing two late-season events. She returned healthier the following year to take home another world title, and Surfer magazine placed her on the cover of the April 1996 issue, which was only the second cover shot of a woman in the publication's 40-year history. At the end of the 1996 year, she reached a third world title.

The 1997 year was the crowning glory of her 4 years of domination on the WCT. Of the 12 events Lisa entered that year, she won five, finished second once, and placed third on three occasions. Just huge ! With this new world title, she became the first surfer to take four consecutive championships since Australian Mark Richards. Andersen wasn't just the best female surfer in the world; she was one of the best professional surfers ever. At this moment, Lisa changed many things in the world of surfing and women sports in general. The revolution she had launched wasn't only specific to the pro tour competitions but was extended to a different state of mind. Now, women surfing is better considered, even by male pro surfers; surfing girls all over the world know that they can surf and not only watch the boys in the line up. Her association with Roxy, Quiksilver women's division, since the early 90's, has been a big boom in the surfing industry too. Women's boardshorts were designed by a great surfing champion for girls, which made them different. After that, a lot of other companies decided to join this new market. By 1997, 15 percent of the surf market was generated by females.

After this big year, the following season, she did a good beginning but, due to a chronic back injury, she was forced to quit the pro tour for a while. It lasted 18 months. She took this time to turn her attention on her family in Ormond Beach, Florida. In late 1999, she announced her return to competition, what she did effectively a few months later. She won the Billabong Pro in Anglet, France and finished the season 2000 in fifth position after missing the final two events because of a new pregnancy. She gave birth to another child, a boy called Mason, in 2001.

She returned to the WCT tour a second time in 2002 but, unfortunately, she didn't win any contest and was ranked 15 at the end of the season. She did a good start by winning points on the first three competitions, but she didn't participate in the Figueira Pro, and in the last two events of the year, she was eliminated in second round. With this ranking, she's not in the list of surfers qualified for the 2003 season.
Since 2003, Lisa has ended her professional surfing career and is now contest director of many Roxy events.