The Calm After The Storm

“In the years to come I see at least three Brazilians going after the world title every year on the WSL, and I believe it’ll be hard to simply wipe them off the top.”
-Bruno Santos, 2016

At the time it was an unremarkable statement to make; dull in its ambition. In 2016, the Tempestade Brasileira - transl: Brazilian Storm - was raging. It was easy for anyone, irrespective of their nationality, to agree with Bruno and think Brazil possessed both the talent and the numbers to press hard for every world title into the conceivable future. In 2014, for instance, Gabriel Medina won the world title, while the following year Adriano won, with Brazil posting three surfers in the top five.

In the decade since Medina won his first world title, Brazil has been the world's most dominant surfing nation. They may not have had the sheer number of surfers on the men's Championship Tour - Australia wins that contest - but they’ve had the numbers where it counts.

However, this year that top end domination has hit a hurdle. It began with Filipe Toledo taking time off tour and Joao Chianca copping an involuntary leave of absence after injuring himself in Hawaii. Meanwhile, dark clouds are gathering as the tour approaches Margaret River and the dreaded mid-year cut. Two of Brazil’s top dogs, Medina and Italo Ferreira, are languishing deep in the ratings: Ferreira at 18th, with Medina even deeper at 20th - and in real danger of being cut. Sitting at 16th, Yago Dora is currently Brazil’s highest ranked surfer.

All of which is a turnaround from 2016. Steve Shearer, who’s watched every heat of CT surfing this year, has posted an analysis on how Medina and Ferreira ended up in this predicament. However, there are broader question that need to be asked. Has Brazilian surfing peaked? Why did this happen? And where is Brazil’s new generation of Championship Tour talent?

Peak Storm. Though John John won the title in 2016, Brazil fielded a record (for them) ten starters on the CT: Clockwise from back row, Adriano, Alejo, Miguel, Alex Ribeiro, Italo, Caio, Wiggolly, Gabriel, Filipe, and Jadson.

If an Australian surfer visited Brazil around the turn of the century they would’ve been shocked by the surfers in the water. Hundreds of surfers at each beach, hardly any of them aged over thirty, and most under twenty, with the situation repeated from Florianópolis north to Natal. A great demographic bubble skewing towards the young and male - women surfing is lagging in Brazil for reasons best explored in another article.

Brazilian pros had been on the tour since it started in 1976. That same year, Rio’s Pepe Lopes made the finals of the Pipeline Masters and came 18th on the inaugural tour. However, being a surfer, particularly a travelling surfer, wasn’t as easy in Brazil as it was in Australia or the USA. The country was ruled by an authoritarian military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985. Even after the advent of democracy, it took a decade for inflation - the scourge of all travellers - to be brought under control and the economy to stabilise.

A rising middle class gave free time to a new generation of kids, and with a warm climate and existing beach culture huge numbers of them took to surfing. This back-of-the-napkin explanation illustrates why Brazil had but a sprinkling of pros on the world tour, while our turn of the century traveller would’ve seen legions of kids on the beaches. Things were about to change, big time.

Many people point to 2014 as the beginning of Brazil’s dominance - it was the year Gabriel won the world tour, also Brazil’s first. However, Gabriel was a streaking asteroid from the time he got on tour in 2011 when he won two of his first three CT’s, a feat beyond even Kelly Slater. A lone blaze, Gabe’s early success was a sign of precocious talent not national success, or that's how it was argued by the denialists in the USA and Australia

By 2015 it was impossible to argue against. It was apparent to all that something had happened. After being perennial outsiders, fringe players on the world tour, Brazil was now the dominant surfing nation.

In 2010, Gabriel travelled to the Rip Curl Pro as a sponsor wildcard. Though the-then 16-year old was comprehensively beaten by Mick Fanning in Round 3, he put on an incredible display of aerial surfing adjacent to the contest bank at Johanna. For many, it was ther first sighting of Medina and left them in no doubt the kid had a big future (Craig Brokensha)

If we’re to wonder what’s happening to Brazilian surfing now, it pays to look at a few factors. Yet before we continue, I’m gonna leave all conspiracy theories at the door and hope you will too. By that I mean the belief that the WSL is deliberately hindering or hampering - the accusation changes depending on nationality - Brazilian surfing. I understand the thinking is pervasive so if you must continue with it, knock yourself out. Don't forget to offer some concrete evidence.

Stepping onto ground that’s slightly more solid, it pays to scrutinise Brazil’s first wave of success. Of the surfers who comprise the Brazilian Storm, at least six of them: Medina, Toledo, Ian Gouveia, and Miguel and Samuel Pupo, are second-generation surfers. Following closely in their wake is Mateus Herdy, the nephew of a successful pro - Guilherme Herdy.

It’s a significant fact, one that’s worth wondering about. Despite there being legions of new young surfers in Brazil, one thing that hasn’t changed is the difficulty of making the leap from local hero to touring pro. Securing sponsorship, being exposed to heavy waves, and traveling with English as a second language - if they speak English at all - has hindered many Brazilian surfers. Famous Brazilian talent scout Luiz ‘Pinga’ Campos has nurtured breakout stars such as Adriano de Souza, Jadson Andre, Caio Ibelli, and Italo Ferreira, yet Pinga understands the pathway to pro surfing is vastly easier when the guiding hand is that of a family member, and when that family member understands the surf industry and its requirements.

“For sure,” says Pinga, “some of those athletes had a positive and fundamental support from their families.”

So it’s possible many of the surfers who comprise the Brazilian Storm raced ahead; that they got a leg up through family assistance. And those surfers who don’t have a father or step-father to guide them? That falls to individuals such as Pinga, or to institutions such as the Brazilian Surfing Confederation to guide talented surfers over the economic and cultural barriers. Like forerunners to a groundswell, the Brazilian Storm arrived first due to inherent fortune, while the rest will arrive in due course.

“The first thing that comes to mind is cycles,” says Brazilian journalist and one-time touring pro Julio Adler when asked about Brazil's current predicament. “[We’ve had] ten years of absolute dominance. One day there will be a decline, a slip.”

Though Julio isn’t convinced that time is now. 

“I don't think Brazilian surfing has ever been so well structured. Whether this will generate new world champions is too early to say.”

“As for new surfers,” continues Julio, “I'll go back to Gabriel. Until he came along in 2009 and won the King of the Groms Final in France with two 10s, he was off the radar, no-one knew him.”

Of the surfers most likely to replace the Brazilian Storm and jump onto the CT, Julio nominates Mateus Herdy - who’s won the South American Qualifying Series, missed the CT by two places, and come third in a CT as a wildcard - plus Leo Casal and Ryan Kainalo. 

Looking at the next age bracket down, Julio mentions Rodrigo Saldanha, Gabriel Klausner, and Cauã Costa. Are those names familiar to Western ears? Perhaps not yet but maybe they will be soon.

Also, for what it’s worth, despite this article being about Brazilian surfing slumping in 2024, Julio is keeping the champagne on ice. “I'm still convinced that Gabriel will win the world title and the gold medal in 2024,” says Julio boldly.

Despite sitting in 20th place, Julio doesn’t “see anyone better prepared, surfing better, better advised, better trained than him. Andy King is the best coach we have in the world of surfing, miles away from the rest, because he is able to find small flaws and big solutions in all sorts of surfers from Mick Fanning to Tiago Pires - two surfers who achieved more than they themselves believed.”

“He's turning Gabriel into a better and better surfer; it's scary what these two can do together.”

Brazil's next gen? From left, Mateus Herdy placing second in the Corona Open Mexico 2021, Leo Casal turning off the bottom on his way to second place at the 2022 Nias Pro Junior, and Ryan Kainalo winning the 2023 O'Neill Smith Shapes Rookie Rippers (WSL/Heff, Hain, McGregor)

If Julio’s vision materialises and Gabriel wins the world title then it’ll be the greatest title chase of all time, though even if it did happen it’s highly likely that Brazil will end up with the fewest number of surfers in the top 22 since 2014. Meaning we’re back to where we started questioning why the numbers are reducing instead of increasing.

“Despite having memorable names, I agree that Brazil has a gap,” says Pinga of Brazil's immediate future. “We don’t have a strong generation, in terms of quantity and preparation for the CT. We have potential, but nothing similar to what we have today.”

In the early 2000s, Pinga worked with Oakley Brazil to establish a talent development program. Nothing like that existed in Brazil and Oakley took a gamble on Pinga’s vision. Their trust in him paid off enormously when first Adriano, then Jadson, Caio, and Italo, were taken under Pinga’s wing, gradually exposed to the world of competition and travel before making their own imprints on the CT, replete with Oakley stickers on the nose of their boards.

Not only does Pinga have a theory on how to make it as a Brazilian pro, he’s successfully put that theory into practice. Few people know what it takes like Pinga.

“We had a poor period of good events in the country,” says Pinga by way of explanation, “combined with the indifference of most companies, including the surf ones investing in young surfers.”

“Added to it, the absence of a planned development and consistent project created this gap.“

When the Brazilians started making the CT, there was a belief that the surge would continue indefinitely. As the saying goes, young surfers could see who they wanted to be. Now it was only a matter of striving. Yet Pinga knows that striving isn’t enough. Programs such as he had with Oakley need to be continually driven, because without them the hurdles are too great.

Brazil's first successful pro, Pepe Lopes, in action at the 1976 Pipeline Masters (Alberto Sodre)

Paulo Vinicus Borges is a 45-year old surfer from Florianópolis who’s lived in Australia for fifteen years and he has a slightly different explanation for the current trajectory of Brazilian surfing.

“From the late 1980s until the mid 2000s, most of the crowd was formed by young kids, mostly below 20-years old - which was understandable as surfing was relatively new in Brazil,” explains Paulo.

“That is no longer the case - the kids are gone. I spent most of 2023 in Florianópolis, surfing at Praia Mole and Joaquina most days. When I stopped to think about [the makeup of the crowd], I was semi-shocked to notice that the majority of people in the lineup were above 30-years old.”

“Where were the troops of annoying 15-year-olds that would surf for hours non-stop and have infinite energy to paddle back and forth? Not to be seen.”

“There were the lone wolves here and there, but the packs were no longer present.”

Paulo emphasises that the observation wasn’t just his own, but was “shared by many of my older friends. If any unconscious bias existed in our view, it probably would go the other way: That is, old men would be complaining of too many over-entitled kids in the water.”

There’s a bit to unpack here, so let’s break it down into parts. The first is that, if Paulo’s observation is true, the “demographic bubble” noted around the turn of the century is evolving; it's moving along the timeline. The very same thing happened following surf booms in the USA and Australia. As surfing’s popularity retreated fewer younger surfers took it up, while those already surfing skewed the demography towards middle-age.

This alters the culture of the host nation. Feeling the first flush of physicality, young surfers crave to compete. They want to find the limits of capability and competition is the best way to do that, while also feeding their growing egos. It follows that a surf nation whose surf population tends towards the young and competitive should see results on the world’s competitive stage - as Australia did through the 1970s and 1980s, as Brazil has for the last decade. Despite having a long history of surfing, Brazil is still a young surf nation - or at least it was when our turn of the century traveller clocked his eyes on the lineups.

The USA and Australia are undoubtedly mature surf nations. Our surf cultures are multi-dimensional and have gone through many cycles. When Gabriel Medina recently took time off from the Championship Tour a commenter on Swellnet opined that Gabe was having a moment of self-realisation - that perhaps there was more to life than surfing heats - and he’d soon be seen riding a twin fin.

It may have been intended as a throwaway comment but here’s an element of sagacity in the statement. Brazil is reaching a point where it’s no longer a young surf nation; it crosses over to also become a mature surf nation, and with that comes many changes. For one, competition is no longer the collective project of Brazilian surfers. As they age, they’ll want to express themselves in other ways - perhaps by riding twin fins and alternative craft.

It’s worth noting then that São Paulo ripper Victor Bernardo is cutting edits for Album, riding boards shaped by Matt Parker, the apostle of lavish vintage style. Twins fins, wide point forward, full-railed, full gloss too, some shorter than normal, some longer than normal. Critics call this hind-ways experimentation 'historical baggage', the inference being that looking backwards weighs down a culture. Yet for surfers raised on a steady diet of 6’0” by three fins, it feels fresh as morning dew.

Which, as an aside, means that if you’re a surfboard shaper in Brazil, start working on a mid-length model pronto.

So perhaps a tipping point has been reached? Brazilian surf culture has officially reached middle-aged and they can’t just assume everlasting success. The USA went through it in the 1970s, Australia in the 1990s. Each country had to put systems in place to nurture young and talented surfers and provide them with pathways to the top.

Hawaii, in case you’re wondering, is considered neither young or old, but simply a surf nation. Surfing is deeply embedded in the culture, across generations and ages, making it impervious to the cycles of fashion or trends.

No longer just ripping their way to contest results, Brazilian surfers can express themselves in other ways. Victor Bernardo has become a fan of the high line glide (Banks Journal)

Another aspect of Paulo’s observation about fewer young kids surfing is to ask why that is so. In Brazil, as in other countries with rising affluence, the distractions are endless, much of them coming from online.

Answering his own question, Paulo says of the missing kids: “Perhaps they were focused on Minecraft or their smartphones, who knows?”

Being a father to three young kids myself, I despair at the creeping prevalence of screens. In my more righteous moments I wonder what’s happened to surfing that an arvo session runs second fiddle to Xbox.

Says Paulo, “I feel surfing is not seen as the ‘cool kid’ sport it once was in Brazil.”

With a ladder company sponsoring the WSL, Kai Lenny towing Mark-fucking-Zuckerberg on a foil, Woolworths with their fingers all over Aussie surfing, Gerry Lopez selling popouts in chain stores, and once-edgy clothes brands sitting on the racks of fishing shops, terminal uncoolness appears to be the case everywhere. We may tell ourselves we’re cool, but in 2024 surfers look like jocks and shills to most everyone else. At least it’s the same the world over.

The final aspect to consider from Paulo’s observation is that, if fewer kids are taking up surfing, and competition isn’t the collective will of all Brazil’s surfers, how does a nation stay successful on the world stage? As mentioned earlier, both the USA and Australia already went through this, with both countries replacing organic means to success with institutional structures. In the 1980s, the USA started the NSSA - the National Scholastic Surfing Association - which had near-immediate success, while in Australia boardriders clubs had always been hothouses of talent, yet when in the 1990s they weren’t enough to combat the resurgent Americans, a rebadged Surfing Australia brought surfing into the government fold.

Before taking in the Brazilian response, it’s worth noting that Pinga believes surfing in his country is going through “an incredible moment - a lot of kids are surfing”.

As has been explained, however, that doesn’t simply translate to success. “A lot needs to be reviewed,” says Pinga, “and a key change is essential for us to develop good surfers and athletes again. Also, we must keep hoping that some companies wake up and believe in something in this direction.”

If the support of surf companies bothers Pinga, the institutional support delights Julio Adler. “The Brazilian Surfing Confederation is doing an exceptional job with Flavio ‘Teco’ Padaratz as president,” explains Julio.

“We have a very strong national professional circuit, the return of the grassroots circuits, and a pile of money pouring in since we won the Olympic gold medal.”

That last sentence could describe the situation in the USA or here in Australia. Each nation had their organic success, their once-in-a-generation surfers who arrived on the beach fully formed, dragging their peers along for the ride. But ongoing success has proved elusive, as dawned upon the USA and Australia, and is dawning upon Brazil now. It'll only get harder as newer surf nations enter the fray and the number of competitive surfers increases.

Brazil can't count on another superstar like Gabriel Medina or Filipe Toledo, nor can they lean on second-gen talent, so they're building frameworks to develop successful surfers. Already they have the Brazilian Surfing Confederation, while Pinga is trying to recreate his past mentoring success, each hoping to put the next generation of Brazilian surfers onto the Championship Tour.

"We need to be careful in these next steps," says Pinga. "It’s a challenge, but this was once only a dream and we have achieved so much."

“If I were Australian or American, I'd be worried," laughs Julio Adler.

//STU NETTLE