"Pauline's Pain," by Tim Baker, ran in the April 1994 issue of Australia's Surfing Life magazine, just after Menczer won the 1993 WCT title. This version has been slightly edited. 

Guests at the Turtle Bay Hilton who observed the small, pale, freckly, crippled girl's warm-up routine at the hotel swimming pool could have had little idea what they were witnessing. The frail, 23-year-old began trying to massage some life into her seized ankles and knees. She slowly straightened her fingers out from the savage little claws they were bent into. She shuffled up and down the side of the pool like a geriatric. Then she gingerly started flapping her bent arms. 

Pauline Menczer, ravaged by the arthritis that had laid dormant for five years, was trying to get her body to work, one week before she was due to surf for the women's world professional surfing title.

When her swollen and painful joints had released a little of their cruel grip, Pauline fastened her legrope to the bar at the end of the pool and began paddling in place.

"That's when I was at rock bottom—like an old lady," says Pauline, laughing.

Yet a week later, she was charging six-foot Sunset in the World Cup, tossing her tiny frame over the falls and into impossible close-out maneuvers. When she advanced out of the first semifinal, and old friends Pam Burridge and Jodie Cooper knocked out title contender Neridah Falconer in the second semi, the world title was hers.

In the interceding week, Pauline had frantically sought relief. Despite her faith in natural remedies, in desperation she spent $100 for a pain-killing injection that she says did nothing. On a friend's recommendation, she flew to the Hawaiian island of Kauai to see a chiropractor four days before the contest was due to start. With his help, the support of friends, a painstaking stretching regime, regular massage, and dietary advice from strict vegetarian Cheyne Horan, Pauline managed to push her failing body through the event. Including contest heats, she estimates that she only surfed 20 times in the four months from the onset of the arthritis episode in France to the end of the Hawaiian events.

In the past, Pauline has played down her arthritis. "The reason I didn't want to talk about it was I was feeling so good for the last five years, and because the media always brings it up anyway," she says. "It's hard. I mean, I'm a talented surfer and 

 readers only know about me because of my arthritis." 

She pauses. "But this last go-around has been so bad, I want everyone to know what I've been through," she finally says.

What Pauline has been through runs a lot deeper than the arthritis. When she was five years old, in the space of just three months, her grandfather and father were killed in separate car accidents. Her grandfather, a milkman, was struck by a car while doing his milk run. Her father, a taxi driver, inexplicably drove his car into a fence and was killed. "My mum believes he was hit on the head. His money was stolen. But the police did nothing about it."

Shortly before the accidents, Pauline's paternal grandparents had also moved into the family home. "My mum's left with my grandmother and four kids to look after." On a single mother's pension, Pauline's mum brought up her four children (two sets of twins, Pauline and Benny, 23, and Tracy and Trevor, 27) and supported Pauline's career.

It took Pauline a year to save up for her first surfboard and, because of her boyish, freckly appearance, she hung with the male groms at Bondi from the start. Their influence gave her surfing a masculine, on-edge quality that soon brought her notice. Even the onset of the arthritis in adolescence couldn't slow her progress. A world amateur title in 1988 and quick success on the pro tour brought her to the attention of the Arthritis Foundation, eager for a youthful, active role model. Pauline says she's tried to do her bit but can't pretend it isn't a burden, especially when she's needed picking up herself.

"Only two weeks before I left for Hawaii, this woman wrote me a letter saying, 'I've got a young friend up the road who's got bad arthritis and she won't get out of bed,'" Pauline says. "And here I am, writing this letter back while feeling like shit, going, 'you've got to do it, you've got to get out of bed,' and I'm like, 

, I feel like shit too and I'm supposed to write this nice letter?"

Despite her present dilapidated state, Pauline still has plenty of surfing ambitions—to master the new maneuvers Slater and company are doing, to surf big waves aggressively, like the men do, to go on surf trips to exotic locations. "I'd like to hang out and surf with the guys a bit more," she says.

But all Pauline's goals, in big and small waves, free surfing and contests, could amount to little without financial relief. Her only support in the past has been from Sky Surfboards, who give her boards and pay her contest entry fees. The surf industry (and the surf media, admittedly), it seems, aren't much interested in Menczer

"I'm worried that if I don't do good in the next contest, I can't even do the tour next year," she says. "As soon as I have a bad year, I'm finished. I don't even want to make big money out of surfing. I just want a sponsor to pay for the tour, okay, and then I can have a bit of money left over for myself. I don't care if I don't have any money for after. I just want enough to do the job properly right now." 

Why hasn't the money come? Pauline is in no doubt that she's overlooked by sponsors because she doesn't fit the typical beach babe image. She cites the example of a major surfwear brand who she approached, only to be told they had no money to spend. The following year, they had picked up an attractive, lower-rated surfer. "I was better than her in the ratings, placed better, then all of a sudden she's sponsored by them," Pauline says. "And I'm just as good a surfer, so what's the obvious reason? To me, it's pretty obvious. She's got blue eyes and blonde hair. I don't." 

Pauline disapproves of three-time world champ Wendy Botha's readiness to sell her sexuality by appearing nude in 

 magazine. "It just put us back to where it all started. I just think it was totally negative. What did she do it for, really? The money? Is it really worth it for the money? I don't think it was good for the sport."

Despite this litany of grievances, Pauline seems—happy! She puts it down to her tough upbringing. "I think I deserve a lot more, but I've still got a lot more than I ever had," she explains. "I'm happy with what I've got. There's all this shit, shit, shit about sponsorship, and the guys vs the girls. But it's nothing to me, you know? That's all bullshit compared to getting through what I've been through."

I ask if right now is the happiest time of her life, and all of a sudden the tough little character has tears welling up in her eyes. "I cry easy when I'm sick," she says, apologetically. "It's good that you see it," she adds, almost relieved to let down her stony, courageous persona. She presses on. "Surfing has been unreal for me because if I didn't surf, and if I wasn't doing the tour, I'm sure I'd be just in bed crippled," she says. "I'd be on worker's comp and have nothing, just be lying in bed all day."

[Photos: Ron Brazil, Jeff Flindt, Allen Schaben]

"PAULINE'S PAIN" - PAULINE MENCZER PROFILE BY TIM BAKER (1994)

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