Watch: Nazare Big Wave Challenge Highlights

Stu Nettle picture
Stu Nettle (stunet)
Reels

The day started slow and small, by Nazare standards, and ended not-as-slow and not-as-small.

Westerly swells at Nazare, for those who don't know, miss the canyon refraction that makes Nazare what it is. Yesterday's swell was approx. 285°, so 15° off pure west, and the sideways wedge struggled to get going. The pure size...meaning the open ocean swell size, was also on the underside of proper Nazare.

Clement Roseyro won the Best Men’s Performance with Justine Dupont taking the Women’s Best Performance Award. Roseryo doubled up winning the Best Team Performance Award with Nic Von Rupp.

Comments

Tabby10's picture
Tabby10's picture
Tabby10 Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 at 2:49pm

If that was all the highlights in 2 mins, I can’t imagine how boring it would of been to watch it live

southernraw's picture
southernraw's picture
southernraw Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 at 6:33pm

I watched the whole thing live. Wasn't boring. But can understand not for everyone.

Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 at 3:07pm

Pretty sure they ran this comp in direct competition of the launch of The Natural Selection surf contest which aired today.

You'll have a hard time convincing me otherwise......

stunet's picture
stunet's picture
stunet Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 at 3:17pm

You might be right but it's worth considering that last year at Nazare was the worst season in many years - perhaps even since it's been popularised - yet they got to run the comp in late January.

It's now past mid-Feb and they were running out of time to run this year's version, so my guess is they pulled the trigger out of desperation.

Also worth considering that Red Bull is a major sponsor of both events and they ran concurrently on Red Bull TV, which cannibalised the potential audience.

Point being, it didn't serve Red Bull to run the Naz comp but they did anyway, which brings it back to my hunch about desperation.

Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean's picture
Lanky Dean Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 at 4:28pm

Lol, is competitive surfing actually cursed ?

Solitude's picture
Solitude's picture
Solitude Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 at 6:34pm

I’d watch hours of the wave pool over that.
Aside from a bad hold down, towing Naz looks like something an intermediate and up could do.
Two thumbs down.

tubeshooter's picture
tubeshooter's picture
tubeshooter Wednesday, 19 Feb 2025 at 6:45pm

The best part of Nazare is watching ski riders get hammered, sadly there was little of that.
Interviews with Von Rupp don't really thrill me either.

Elliedog's picture
Elliedog's picture
Elliedog Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 at 4:36pm

It doesn't matter what is run it is all so overhyped it becomes unbearable. WSL (Jon Jon, Medina, Slater and a couple of others) at Cloudbreak, J Bay, Pipe and Chopes exempt from this of course.

southernraw's picture
southernraw's picture
southernraw Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 at 6:35pm

Baffles me that crew would rather watch a wave tub over this.
What have surfers become??

Solitude's picture
Solitude's picture
Solitude Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 at 8:15pm

Tow in to a full on burger?

burleigh's picture
burleigh's picture
burleigh Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 at 8:46pm

Towing onto fat mush burgers is boring.

southernraw's picture
southernraw's picture
southernraw Friday, 21 Feb 2025 at 2:41am

Im lucky to witness the heaviest waves in the world regularly down here, and yet i still don't find watching Nazare boring. Not sure how big surf is ever boring.
Each to their own though. Clearly the unpopular opinion here...as usual.
Maybe it's a swellnet thing. Birds of a feather....

mikehunt207's picture
mikehunt207's picture
mikehunt207 Thursday, 20 Feb 2025 at 9:14pm

Euro trash that never paddled in their lives getting towed into fat burgers while holding redbull cans up at every opportunity , horrible.
The very worst of both big wave and competitive surfing combined ...
Well done wsl

Mattyrad82's picture
Mattyrad82's picture
Mattyrad82 Friday, 21 Feb 2025 at 1:54am

Generally my favourite part is watching the skis getting in and out and doing crazy pickups not sure why they showed nearly none of that
And yep wank SL curse continues for sure.
Maybe if they employed even just one person the check comments for a bit of a vibe check maybe they might see why most crew r becoming less interested in there favourite sport