Home town: Coolum, Australia

Julian Wilson’s star is rising upward with vertical trajectory. The past few years have been a whirlwind of promotional shoots and dizzying competitive highlights for this young, amazingly talented Australian surfer. Solid pro junior performances, including a win and the event's only perfect 10 point ride in the inaugural international Pro Junior at Bali's infamous 'Keramas', set against a backdrop of virtual non-stop sojourns for the highly anticipated Young Guns 3 DVD project. Julian has nailed incredible performances in places as far flung as Maui, Grajagan Indonesia, West Australia and East Coast Australia for his Surfer Poll Award winning Best Male Performance part in Young Guns 3. Plus, his amazing repertoire, showcased alongside the freakish talents of stable mates such as Kelly Slater and Dane Reynolds, proves once and for all, this young Aussie has well and truly “arrived”on the international scene.

2006 will be remembered as the year Julian first stepped into the spotlight. At the Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championships held at Maresias, Brazil in early May, he did what everyone knew he was capable of, he bagged a world title. 2006 also saw Julian step onto the winner's podium at numerous junior events closer to home and be in the hunt for the prestigious Australasian junior crown. His ascension from fledgling grom, to hot-rat junior, to where he now stands, ready to take the next step into the big leagues looks complete. Julian's past is dotted with numerous state, national and international podium finishes, and a stack of video parts, most notably (and enviably) his sojourn aboard the flash Indies III alongside Kelly Slater, and fellow Young Guns Ry Craike, Dane Reynolds and Clay Marzo in the Mentawai Islands. Julian has also surfed in front of 25,000 people in the strangest of places, the Sunway Lagoon wavepool in the land-locked city of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he was whipped into two-to-three foot man-made waves by a jet-ski.