The pressure was on, but she felt surprisingly calm and focused, visualizing the perfect performance. Her confidence fed off each competitor she had defeated. There was no room for discouraging thoughts. This was the moment she had waited for since before her ninth birthday.

"I only need two good waves, so just be patient and wait for the good ones," she kept telling herself.

Her patience paid off. The waves came.

And with the waves came victory for BYU student Joy Monahan, 22, who defeated favored Australian surfer Chelsea Williams in an intense 30-minute final of the Women's World Longboard Championship on July 16 in Biarritz, France.

"I just started to cry," Monahan said of winning her first world surfing title. "It's something I've never really experienced. It was truly a dream come true."

Monahan, who placed ninth in 2006 and fifth in 2007, defeated defending champion American Jennifer Smith in the first semifinal before putting together an unstoppable run in the final to overcome Williams by six-tenths of a point.

"I was here for a repeat but Joy [Monahan] is an amazing surfer," Smith told reporters from the Surfersvillage Global Surf news following the event. "She really deserves to be crowned champion."

To be crowned world champion has been a life-long goal for Monahan. She's wanted to be the best since the day she first stepped on a surfboard.

"I'm really competitive," Monahan said. "I've always wanted to be better than I am, ever since I was young."

Monahan's parents, Mark and Liane Magelssen, introduced their four daughters to the sport after returning to Hawaii from the mainland when Monahan was 7 years old. Being out in the waves is one of her family's favorite past-times.

"It's just something that we can do together," said Monahan's oldest sister, Noelle Lau. "We have fun together, encourage each other and just surf together. It has a soothing, healing effect on all of us."

By the time she won her first competition at the age of 14, Monahan had been competing for less than a year. Two state titles, two national titles and countless other amateur and professional titles later, Monahan became the first Hawaiian woman to win the World Longboard Championship.

But as the saying goes, anything worth having comes with a price.

That price? Utah.

When Monahan decided to come to BYU after graduating from high school in 2003, she knew it would be a challenge to train and compete in a state where skiing is king and the nearest ocean is more than 700 miles away. But she does what she can. "I go to the gym and swim and just try to stay as active as I can," she said.

Her raw talent and competitive nature manifested itself when, after being in Provo for an entire school year, Monahan won the U.S. Professional Longboard series at the age of 18, despite missing the first event of the series because of conflicts with school.

"Joy has an incredible talent for surfing," said longtime friend Kenna Graham, 23. "She's competing against people who have been training all year round. She has kept her priorities straight, and the Lord has blessed her."

Everyone who has met Monahan knows she is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her example has "planted many seeds," according to her father Mark, who is an ER physician on the small Hawaiian island of Kauai.

"Joy has an incredibly strong testimony," said Lau, who graduated from BYU law school in 2006. "She has a desire to be close to the Lord and keep his commandments. I think other people see that and what a positive thing it is."

Monahan's sponsor was so influenced by her choice not to wear two-piece swimsuits that they worked to make a one-piece suit conducive to surfing. It has become one of the company's best-selling items. They call it the Joy Surf One-Piece.

So many accomplishments, so many titles, so many goals - but she seems to keep it all in perspective.

"Joy is one of the most humble people you will ever meet," Lau said. "She never talks about herself."

Humility in tow, Monahan, a bright, determined Hawaiian with a beautiful smile, will begin the accounting program at BYU in the fall and hopes to return to the waves again next year to defend her title.

Copyright Brigham Young University 1 Aug 2008