By Julio Adler:

It's a world full of cliches down here: Third world, G-strings, drugs, Christ the Redeemer with his arms wide open and passionate, passionate people.

There's nothing else. Move along.

There's something fake every time somebody writes about Brazil - as fake as Alana's smile. I think they're all trying too hard, there's no point in covering a contest that way.

So let's forget about all the Brazilian myths and call it just another friggen contest.

But not for 34 folks of course, and maybe not for the hundred thousand fans around the world who care about the ASP, points, sponsors, and Sun Tzu.

I have the impression that most people overestimate pro surfing. It's fascinating because it's ordinary, like any other sport, like soccer to me, like fuckin' Aussie rules, or cricket, or basketball.

Here in Brasil, a continental country like Australia, but with ten times more people, hardly a thousand kilometres bigger, nobody gives a flying fuck to pro surfing. It's only news when a countryman wins.

When Jadson won in Imbituba it was big news. Adriano winning Bells, not so much outside the pro surfing bubble.

It would be a mistake to assume that surfing is even perceived as a sport for the people who live in central Brasil, just a few hundred miles from the beach. Well, let's just say a regular soccer player like Leo Moura, not even in the national team, makes around AUS $250,000 a month from Flamengo, a figure close to Slater's earnings.

When you think of a national sports hero in Brasil, you're thinking about Neymar, not Medina.

Twitter statistics to make a point

Neymar - Brazilian soccer player extraordinaire – 6,500,000 followers Gabriel Medina - the Neymar of surfing in Brasil – a little over 45,000 Kelly Slater - 11 World Titles – a little under 300,000

My point is, surfing is small biz here in Brasil, and we love it like this - it's too crowded already.

The Rio event is mobile...actually, not really mobile, but it has two options: Postinho at Barra da Tijuca, and Arpoador right between Copacabana and Ipanema.

Postinho is just the ol' traditional beachbreak. It's a sand bottom, shifts all over the place, works with every kind of swell but it's better with south or southwest direction and a bit of size. The best wind is north/northeast for offshore and east might work as crossshore. There's a slab (actually just a set of three rocks) outside the usual lineup, and when the swell hits the right direction and size - above five to six foot - you can take off some 20 or 30 metres outside. Remember Wilko's wave from last year?

There's a little story behind this place being an option for the World Tour. Most of the international surfers stayed right in front of this wave, which is almost a mile from the original Rio Pro contest site that ran from the late-1980s to 2011. They surfed here all the time and couldn't understand why the organizers chose Meio da Barra, a much easier and mushier wave up the beach. So they asked and they received!

Arpoador is the birthplace of Brazilian surfing and our free and easy lifestyle. It works best with east or south-east swell, east wind with north being straight offshore. It really needs some strong south swell to bring lots of sand close to the rocks then it can work almost like a left pointbreak. Arpoador can be a hell of a wave when the bank's right, but make no mistake, it's always a very tricky wave. It can be fast...and then suddenly, inexplicably slow down. Near the headland there's the Alligator rock, so-called because sometimes, from out of nowhere, it bites the unaware surfer.

Arpoador is also a very particular beach because it has a stadium feel, it's always packed with fans, and it's right in the heart of Rio de Janeiro. Within five minutes walk, there's the infamous Ipanema beach and its short and intense barrels. During the Waimea 5000 contests here in the late-70's and early-80's it was like a sideshow for the enthusiasts with the world's best getting tubed.

Not far from Arpoador lie the best restaurants in the city, Italian, French, wonderful Brazilian cuisine...but who among you care about that? You're all gonna watch the contest through the internet. The same hundred thousand pro surfing fans...

Postscript: Last week the company who produces the Rio Pro, Geo Eventos, one of Globo affiliates (Brazilian media giant), announced it's retirement from sports events. I called former ASP judge and one of the licensees of the Brasil's event, Xande Fontes, and asked if the contest has any chance of being cancelled or brought back to Santa Catarina. Xande was positive that the World Tour will stay in Rio until the end of contract in 2016.

Here in Brasil, the corporate media don't care about details, they only echo the press releases. Does this sound familiar to you, sir ?

Julio Adler is a native of Rio de Janeiro. He travelled as a professional surfer during the late-80s and early-90s and got completely involved with the pro surfing hustle, questioning judges and journalists and wondering what the fuck they were all doing. Around this time Julio began writing for surfing magazines and is now a regular columnist for Surf Portugal and Hardcore in Brazil. He's never had an English lesson in his life and can thank surfing magazines and Neil Young songs for his grasp of the Queen's tongue.