Meanwhile, once-great surf country, Australia, barely scrapes in front of Germany and Canada…
Miyazaki, Japan: Brazilian wizard Italo Ferreira has weaved his way through the Byzantine web that is the ISA World Surfing Games, with its hundreds of hours of heats and losers rounds, and emerged as gold medallist, beating Kolohe Andino, Gabriel Medina and Japan’s Shun Murakami in today’s final.
Italo, of course, made headlines four days ago, when he arrived for his opening heat with no board, wetsuit or surf trunks and with nine minutes remaining. He won. Of course.
And, today, in reasonable sorta rampy junk that gave multi-faceted surfers such as Italo, Gabriel, Brother and co untold advantage, Italo hucked his way to a narrow win over Brother.
Italo’s backside air, below, scored ten points. A frontside air of Kolohe’s, a 9.43.
Here, the ten.
And, here, Brother’s 9.43.
If you want to go by nation, Brazil is officially number one, USA, number two, followed by Japan, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, Portugal and the once-great surfing nation, Australia, who did finish slightly ahead of Germany and Canada.
The event, despite its convoluted nature, proved to be surprisingly pleasing with an earlier heat, a portent of the final as it turned out, featuring Kolohe Andino, Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira and Kelly Slater.
A heat don’t get much more stacked than that.