Skip to main content
U.K. Edition
Thursday, 28 March 2024

With Olympics, world champ says surfing shreds image as sport for 'bums'

Duration: 01:18s 0 shares 1 views

With Olympics, world champ says surfing shreds image as sport for 'bums'
With Olympics, world champ says surfing shreds image as sport for 'bums'

Italo Ferreira believes the perception of surfing as a sport will change once it makes it's Olympic debut in Tokyo.

SHOWS: RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (JANUARY 22, 2020) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1.

(SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) BRAZILIAN SURFER, ITALO FERREIRA, SAYING: "Without a doubt, this is something gigantic for the sport (surfing), seeing as just a few years ago, surfing was seen as a sport for bums, but now people bring their kids to the beach, they bring their kids to surf schools, so that they can practice a healthy sport, a sport that thrives, to compete on the world circuit.

I think everyone who competes on the world circuit has challenged preconceptions.

And surfing at the Olympics is a giant step for the sport." 2.

FERREIRA SURFING 3.

(SOUNDBITE) (Portuguese) BRAZILIAN SURFER, ITALO FERREIRA, SAYING: "The Olympics is a big goal for me.

I am grateful to be able to represent Brazil in surfing and anxious to compete now, to get there and feel the energy of the Olympics.

But before that, there is the World Tour and I need to defend my title.

I'm much more focused today on starting the year right on the circuit and then thinking a little more about the Olympics.

But in fact, these are two very big goals and that's why I started training very early.

I started the season in the first week of January, training at the physical side of things, traveling and looking to improve my surfing.

" STORY: On Wednesday (January 22), freshly crowned surfing world champion Italo Ferreira sliced through steep, fast-barreling waves off Rio de Janeiro's Leblon beach and popped several feet into the air.

On the shore, dozens of young fans cheered and shouted as the soft-spoken native of Brazil's impoverished northeast carved effortlessly through the swell.

Most had arrived - parents in tow - for a skimboarding clinic, a close cousin of surfing where riders focus on small waves close to shore.

For Ferreira, one of two surfers set to represent Brazil at the sport's Olympic debut in Japan this summer, scenes like this help explain how the sport, after decades of trying, finally scored a spot at the Games.

Three and a half years ago, at a meeting just a few miles to the west, the International Olympic Committee added surfing to the Olympic program.

While some surfers grumbled the sport was abandoning its nonconformist roots and that surf breaks were already crowded enough without the publicity of Olympic broadcasts, others are on board with the change.

For Ferreira, the focus now will be bringing home a medal for a surf-mad nation, where some urban surf breaks are clogged with hundreds of frenzied surfers before and after work.

In December, Ferreira was crowned World Surf League champion after beating countryman Gabriel Medina, Brazil's other Olympic qualifier, at the Billabong Pipe Masters competition at the Banzai Pipeline, a dangerous break in Hawaii that has claimed its share of lives.

That came after a year of challenges for Ferreira, including family deaths, some poor early performances and a near drowning at a competition in Australia.

The waves in Japan have similar characteristics to his home in northeastern Brazil, Ferreira said, meaning he may have an advantage.

In any case, he expects Brazil will be a top contender.

You might like