HELLA BELLA a Bells Beach belle !!!

WORDS: Jason Oxenbridge PHOTOGRAPHY Supplied

Gold Coast surfer Isabella “Bella” Nichols is riding a wave of resilience, determination and world-class form as she prepares to defend her historic victory at Bells Beach.

Scorpioned: (verb) a painful wipeout or fall, typically in sports like surfing, snowboarding, or skateboarding. It happens when a person lands face-down, causing their legs and feet to fly over their back and strike the back of their head, resembling a scorpion’s sting.

BELLS BEACH, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 27: Isabella Nichols of Australia prior to surfing in the Final of the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on April 27, 2025 at Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia. (Photo by Cait Miers/World Surf League)

Isabella Nichols is the highest ranked Gold Coast female professional surfer on the planet. In the ultra-competitive World Surf League she’s ranked No.6 in the world. Her journey is one carved through giant ocean walls and highs and falls. When Ocean Road catches up with the 28-year-old, she’s recovering after a nasty wipeout at Burleigh Heads where she was ‘scorpioned’ before landing in a patch of blue bottles.

“I paddled out and my elbow was sore, like a strain injury type thing, and then I went to catch a wave, slipped off the rail and got ‘scorpioned’,” she says.

“Next second, I’m landing in a patch of blue bottles. Two big ones (tentacles) wrapped around my ankle and the poison made its way to my inner thigh. I was writhing in pain for two hours on the headland with my whole body shaking.

“My coach was getting hot water to pour over the welts and I had to lay down and just go through the motions. Someone had antihistamines and I couldn’t drive, so I got a lift home and rested up for the night.”

In typically tenacious spirit, the Viking surfer they call ‘Bella’ shook off the nasty man-of-war toxins and paddled out at Kirra the next morning. In the cutthroat world of professional surfing, you need to get back on the horse, before it bolts.

One of just three Australian women in the top 10 ranked female surfers in the world, Nichols has a steely determination and is in career best form.

Current WSL women’s world champion, the trailblazing Molly Picklum from Terrigal on the NSW central coast, powers into season opener the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach ranked No. 1, while two-time world champion Tyler Wright holds down the No.7 spot.

Nichols is riding the crest of a wave. Over Easter she will attempt to defend her Rip Curl Bells title.

It’s the same iconic location where last year she won her second WSL event in messy overhead waves defeating Brazilian Luana Silva in the final, while banking a cool $100,000 in prize money.

Happy Gilmore back to spoil the party

But can Bella become the belle of the Bell’s ball once again? One surfer keen to upset that dream is that other ‘Cooly kid’ – eight-time world champion Stephanie Gilmore.

Sending shivers through the rest of the women’s WSL pack, the most successful female surfer in history announced her return to competition for 2026 after a two-year hiatus.

She returns to the tour aged 38 in pursuit of a record ninth world title, after scoring a season wildcard. The comeback will be the talk of Torquay will all eyes on her first round.

There’s a lot riding on the first event of the year at the iconic natural amphitheatre. It will be the first time in professional surfing history that the famous right-hander on the rugged Victorian coast will host the WSL season launch.

It also marks the first time the WSL season has started in Australia since 2019.

As Nichols prepares to recreate history under the glare of the famous Bells cliffs, the 28-year-old natural footer is both philosophical and grounded.

Just how grounded time will tell. She still must manage the butterflies when she’s cruising down the Great Ocean Road and spots a giant billboard of herself on the side of the road. And it might not be as mesmerising as Parko’s deranged behind-the-rock rock Snapper keg at Kirra Surf, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

“There’s more pressure this year, but I have more confidence as I just love surfing there (Bells Beach). It’s not the best wave, but it has something else, that history and nostalgia. I’ll be well prepared and will show up to every heat,” says Nichols.

“Like any surfer, you always want to win a bell (trophy), it’s one of the pinnacles of the sport. I just missed out a couple of years ago and that hurt. I had a tough year after I came off that final. Whenever I see someone hoist that famous bell trophy it gives you goosebumps. With Bells being the season opener, I feel a weird sense of calm. I have been going down there since I was 15.”

Ringing the bell in 2025 was life-changing for Nichols – her name forever etched in surfing folklore on the Bells’ stairs.

“Winning Bells was the best moment of my life. My parents were there as well and seeing them on the beach after the win was an amazing feeling. My dad chaired me up the beach in his Bronco’s jersey, it felt so special,” she says, recalling the magic.

Slotting into the zone

There are defining moments in professional sport that can elevate an athlete. It’s when all the elements line up and some kind of divine intervention by ‘Huey’ occurs. They call it ‘flow state’.

For Nichols, there’s been a few. But critically, it all happened last year after ‘that’ all or nothing floater at Margaret River. The one that her coach, Burleigh Head’s Jay ‘Bottle’ Thompson advised not to attempt.

It’s called going for broke – and Nichols was bloody lucky she didn’t break any bones after floating a section on a heavy 2.5 metre wall where she became airborne, somehow landing on her surfboard as water crashed down all around her.

Thompson says his charge possesses a combination of natural style and raw power. She also has patience and timing. Nichols looks good just standing on a wave.

“Bella has the ability to surf with such grace and then unleash a hit of aggression,” says Thompson, who also coaches Gold Coast surfing prodigy and CT charger Liam O’Brien.

“From a competitive standpoint, she’s had a lot of trials and tribulations. She’s a real battler who can dig deep when she has to and has shown that throughout her career.”

Asked what it’s like to coach someone who also has such an analytical brain – she’s studying a degree in engineering – Thompson says it gives her an edge.

“She’s like a mad scientist sometimes with that engineering background and wants answers and analysis around her surfing which is unique,” he says.

“When it comes to surfing Bells, she definitely has an affinity with that wave, but it’s come from a lot of hard work and putting in the hours out there.”

Born in Denmark before moving to Australia as a child, she first waxed up aged nine, surfing every day before school on the Sunshine Coast. Aged 20 she bought a house near the NSW/QLD border and hasn’t looked back.

“From a surfing point of view, there are so many options and there’s always somewhere to surf no matter the winds or conditions, I love it,” she says.

Rollercoaster ride

While life as a professional surfer seems glamorous, nothing comes without sacrifice in elite sport. It’s been a rough and tumble ride for Nichols, navigating the setbacks and mental wipeouts of professional surfing.

Who can forget when she famously charged big Margaret River in 2022, avoiding the brutal mid-season cut and making it back on tour, winning her maiden WSL victory in tricky conditions against Hawaiian Gabriela Bryan.

Then just 12 months later it was ripped from under her and she was knocked off the tour.

After a few years toiling away on the qualifying tour and broke, there were days where she wanted to throw in the towel. Life as an engineer never looked so good.

Did she really have what it took to beat the world’s best? During a Qualifying Series at Narrabeen in Sydney she was so deflated, just getting out of bed was a chore. Then something miraculous occurred. She dug deep as she’d done so many times and won the contest.

If adversity is her fuel, she has tanks of the stuff. She thrives when the chips are down.

Or when she was trenchantly cut by longtime sponsor Billabong, which although struck hard, forced her to evolve. While it felt like her world was crashing down, setbacks have also lit a fuse in this tenacious athlete.

“The surfing industry can be tough and when I was dropped by Billabong with late notice at the end of season 2024, it was the last season of me not making the cut for the tour,” she laments.

“It was tough when I was dropped and in my head I thought it was the worst thing that could happen, but then I thought about it differently and it actually opened up other opportunities. It’s not the be all, end all.

“My career has always been a bit tumultuous, and I have been on and off tour and at one stage had no stickers on my board. That just drove me to be better. I realised that it wasn’t the hardest thing.

“The times I surfed in contests without a major sponsor actually forced me to live in the moment a bit more. It sounds cliched, but I was in complete control of my own destiny. I started to look at companies that aligned with my own values.”

Swell of support through positivity

That drive has led to sponsor deals with plant-based milk manufacturer Bonsoy, and Spanish engineering company Acciona – a global infrastructure and renewable energy company, specialising in developing wind and solar farms and water treatment facilities.

“After a couple of tough years on the qualifying tour I started to shift the way I train, got into the ‘Wim Hof’ breathing exercises,” she says of the breath work, which involves rapid breathing that lowers carbon dioxide levels and holding your breath to induce low oxygen.

What about ice baths? Surely someone born with Nordic blood would be accustomed to this shock chill to the system.

“You won’t find me near an ice bath,” she says laughing.

“I did make a movie (Nordborn) about returning to Denmark and surfing there in two-degree temps. It was freezing but the experience was incredible. It was a passion project and showed me there’s a whole other thing going on outside of professional surfing.”

Ironically, the idea to film a surf travel doco back at her icy homeland was not hatched in the dizzying chills of Scandinavia, but rather the tropics of Hawaii when she was competing at the notorious Banzai Pipeline.

“I was in Hawaii and had a few bad years on tour and just wanted to do something different. The idea to travel back to Denmark and link up with local surfers to make a doco was put in motion,” she says.

“I liked the work of a local videographer (Jakob Gjerluff Ager) over there and we planned it for when there would be a decent swell. It happened just before Portugal (MEP Rip Curl Pro), so we could go to Denmark and film and then I could go surf the event at Portugal.”

Guided by local surfer Oliver Hartkopp, Nichols tapped the raw beauty of the place and battled cold-water surfing while reconnecting to her roots and the people who live on the North Sea.

The result is a 30-minute doco that stretches past the sunny shores and tube-spitting point breaks of the Gold Coast and takes you on a journey, an almost spiritual sojourn capturing her ancestry.

“I think people are interested in different stories outside of just competitive surfing or shooting perfect barrels in Indo. Travelling back there reminded me of being a child again and the smells and scenery was so comforting,” she says.

Parents Ross and Lisbeth moved to Australia with Nichols and twin sister Helena as two-year-olds. Along with younger brother Zander, they’re her ‘biggest fans’. So tight is the family bond that she credits her dad as her favourite surfer and greatest inspiration.

They have supported her hopes and dreams and at times must have wondered how she could keep getting up off the canvas and keep swinging.

Nichols has always had raw surfing ability. She put the surfing world on notice after winning the world junior title in Portugal in 2016 aged 18.

At Pipeline last year she proved that she could charge when the waves were big too.

“Pipe was a tough one. I was working with Shane Dorian (former pro and Hawaiian waterman) who knows Pipe very well and we surfed the morning before the contest and I got a crazy barrel out there, one of the best of my life,” she says.

“Then when I was in the heat with Lakey (American professional surfer Lakey Petersen), those bigger waves just turned off and I didn’t adjust to the conditions and she did. That sucks, but that’s surfing. Sometimes you can’t get into a rhythm. You have to be able to adjust to changing conditions in the line up quickly and the best surfers can do that really well.

“Even days when I wasn’t feeling super positive, experiences like that drive me to do better. They make me believe that there’s always something positive happening just around the corner.”

Engineering waves of success

Nichols is studying a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at Deakin University. It’s a juggle amongst the strict demands of professional sport. Sharp and ambitious, she has a plan after surfing.

“I love the way the world works and am curious about different forces, science and energy,” she says.

“A lot of people think that being a professional surfer is the most glorious job in the world, but they don’t see behind the scenes, the commitment required with training and constant travel.

“Don’t get me wrong, I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunities that professional surfing has given me and the places and waves I get to visit and surf, but it’s not everything.

“Some of the best times for me are with close friends surfing down the coast somewhere with a little bank and hardly anyone around. Just having fun for the sake of surfing and hanging out. I love that.

“One thing I have learned is that I never want to force it. It’s crazy with surfing that sometimes it just takes one wave and the love I have for it is all around me. There are times when I wake up and don’t feel like surfing at all, and others when I’m up early and can’t wait to get in the water.

“There has to be a balance. I stick to what I believe in and trust that I’m going to be Ok in life.

“I want to be able to look back and say I gave it my all and that I had nothing left in the tank.”

BELLS BEACH, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA – APRIL 27: Isabella Nichols of Australia and Jack Robinson of Australia after the Final at the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach on April 27, 2025 at Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia. (Photo by Cait Miers/World Surf League)

Striking a chord

When she’s not surfing, drinking coffee or dedicating her time to sponsors and promotional responsibilities, Nichols is rocking away to her favourite tunes and trying to find a moment in the day to strum one of her collections of acoustic guitars, lined up like a quiver in the loungeroom.

Citing musical tastes such as Florence and the Machine, Angus and Julia Stone and Jack Johnston, she’s also an avid collector of vinyl.

She loves to play guitar to Jack Johnston’s timeless hit Taylor – a song featuring Ben Stiller in the video clip and shot in in Hawaii.  Lately she’s tapped into American punk rock icon Patti Smith.

Her favourite board to ride is a Steph Gilmore (x8 world champion) inspired DHD model called the ‘SG No.8’.

We think it’s time that shaper Darren Handley created a special Bella Nichols model. He could call it ‘The Viking’ – or maybe ‘Banga’ as a nod to Patti.