Meet the tiny 12-year-old set to debut at pro-surfing's heaviest wave
Gallina - whose self-styled 'Miss Teahupo'o' Instagram page has already gained a significant following - booked a Tahiti Pro showdown with Australian title hope and world No.1 Molly Picklum by taking out the local trials earlier this week.
Gallina's victory secured the first of two women's wildcards to surf the Teahupo'o event from August 7, with the youngster's 13th birthday falling a few days later on August 10.
Gallina first surfed Teahupo'o - which loosely translates to 'place of skulls' in the local dialect - when she was just four years old and has regularly pushed herself into waves twice her size at the feared break.
'I have no words. I'm so happy. I can't believe it,' Gallina said on the WSL broadcast, adding that a first-up Tahiti Pro heat against Picklum is a dream come true.
Gallina's Instagram page - run by her father Ryan - chronicles a childhood spent navigating the left-hand barrels over infamously shallow reef.
In an interview with Stab Magazine following Gallina breakthrough Tahiti trials win, her father said: 'when Kelia was only a little girl, she was always the only girl out there [surfing Teahupo'o],' in reference to the WSL mothballing the women's championship event from 2006 to 2022 because it was deemed too dangerous for them.
Since the women's event returned to Teahupo'o, women's surfing in waves of consequence on the WCT has shot to unprecedented levels.
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