On Set With Caroline Marks at The Boca Raton

SI Staff | 16 Hours Ago

Caroline Marks Interview: The Boca Raton /

At 23 years old, Caroline Marks, the 2023 World Surf League Women’s World Tour Champion and gold medal-winning Olympian, returns to SI Swimsuit after making her debut back in 2020. On set at The Boca Raton, we caught up with Marks to reflect on what this shoot means to her this time around.

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, I am Caroline Marks and we are here on set with Sports Illustrated Swimsuit.

One of my earliest memories of surfing, being at our local surf break over here in Florida, in Melbourne Beach. Just surfing with all my brothers and all my friends, that's like my corest memory of surfing after school, before school. To this day, those are some of the best memories of my life. 

The moment for me when I realized like, wow, I wanna do this forever, I was competing at Lower Trestles over in Southern California. I just remember like all the girls I was competing against, everyone was saying, ‘they're the best girls in the world.’ And then I ended up winning and I was like, ‘Well, I must be like pretty good at this, you know, if I like, just won against all the best girls.’ 

Since I've ever known, I guess that's kind of been my life, but obviously I've, you know, missed out on things like prom and homecoming and, normal school life. It's impacted my life a lot in the way of like, it hasn't been normal, but I don't want to be normal, so I I enjoy it. 

I definitely struggle with body image.You know, it's not only that I'm a professional athlete, but I'm also in a sport that I'm always in a bikini and it's very exposing. It's something that I never struggled with, and then a couple years ago I started to struggle with it. I think for me it was weird because there would be like thousands of positive comments and then just like one negative one. And unfortunately, sometimes you just focus on the negative one. At the end of the day, when you have that many eyes on you, not everyone's going to really love what you do, or there's many people that are jealous or people that want to take you down. I think it's only natural to be affected by that and really read it to things like that, but at the end of the day, I think when people are making negative comments about you, it's usually their own insecurity. I think just learning that, has been really helpful. 

My first year on tour there wasn't equal pay, but my second year on tour, it became equal pay, so for me, things happened really fast. I remember I was talking to Stephanie Gilmore one time, she's one of my biggest heroes and the greatest of all time in surfing, and she was like, ‘Gosh, your timing was so good. Like I remember at your age, I was making this amount of money and it's crazy.’ So for me, I just wanna thank all the girls that came before me that really paved way for me. 

You're dealing with mother nature and you just really have to go with the flow. So I think I'm just like, ‘You know what? Whatever I'm feeling in the moment, I'm gonna do. Controlling what's in my control.’And for me that's going out there and spending time in the water, and testing my boards, and working with my coach, and getting lineup spots and making sure I'm sleeping enough and hydrating. You know, eating with food that makes me feel good, and so, preparing really well, really helps with my mindset because it gives me that confidence. You know, no matter what happens in the water, I prepared the absolute best I could, and that just gives you confidence right there. 

The Olympics? Yeah. Wow. It's one of the only things that brings the entire world together and it's pretty amazing. You ask anyone, they might have no idea about surfing, but they know about the Olympics. 

For me, you know, it's the second time surfing's ever been the Olympics, ever. And so to be a part of it both years has been amazing, and to see how much attention it's brought to the sport has been so incredible. 

I'm just excited to see the progression. I feel like surfing's just getting more popular. The next generation, they're gonna be super gnarly -- the sky's the limit.

And that's a wrap on my 2025 SI Swimsuit photo shoot.