Ella Williams
Ella Williams (born 13 January 1995) is a New Zealand surfer from Whangamatā. She became the junior world champion at 18 in Florianópolis, Brazil, and was set to compete in the inaugural shortboard event at the Tokyo Olympics.
She grew up in a surfing family—her parents, Dean and Janine, own a surf shop. Williams started surfing at four in Raglan and entered her first competition at six in the under-12s. When she was seven, the family moved to Whangamatā on the Coromandel Peninsula, where they took over the local surf shop in 2002. She attended Whangamatā Area School and later said she wasn’t very good at school. At eight, she wrote on a poster that she wanted to be world champion and kept it by her bed.
She began winning competitions from age 14, often beating boys. In 2013 she wasn’t expected to go to the World Junior Championship due to rankings, but when Australian Ellie-Jean Coffey withdrew, Williams went to Brazil with ten days’ notice and beat Tatiana Weston-Webb in the final to win the title. The following year she turned professional.
In 2019, at the ISA World Surfing Games, she finished 29th and earned provisional qualification for Tokyo 2020. New Zealand could have two spots for women surfers, but at the 2021 ISA World Surfing Games Paige Hareb finished eighth and only the top seven qualified. In April 2021, Williams briefly questioned the COVID-19 vaccine but soon decided to get vaccinated.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 09:45 (CET).