"Italo... won the first surfing Olympics, battled with form and disillusionment, and just won the best contest since that title at Pipe."
When Nick Carroll speaks it is best to listen. The king of surf journalists, adroit surfer himself, brave, intelligent and brother of Tom, knows a thing or two about a thing or two. Carroll has been writing about this pastime of kings for the better part of five decades yet is as sharp as ever.
And moments ago, he added much gravitas to the growing sentiment that sitting World Surf League champion Filipe Toledo should vacate his slot on Brazil’s Olympic team so that Italo Ferreira can give it a crack. Taking to Surfline and discussing how Teahupo’o has changed, or hasn’t in the past ten years, Carroll penned, “Italo, well in that long decade, he’s come from poverty to a world title, won the first surfing Olympics, battled with form and disillusionment, and just won the best contest since that title at Pipe. Vahine’s now full-on favorite for the approaching Games at what’s pretty much her homebreak. Maybe Filipe should give Italo his spot.”
Mic dropped.
Only the most mentally slovenly surf fan is unaware that Toledo famously fails to paddle at Head Place and, if the waves are good, may well reprise his historic 0.00 heat total there or even that time he got out-surfed by not one but two geriatrics. It is, no doubt, a scary wave with a story of near amputation making the rounds today but Toledo is a champion with cat-like reflexes and lightly more is expected.
The timid lion was in Tahiti, ahead of the just-wrapped Pro won my Ferreira, “training,” as it were, for the Olympics but only shared a video of him not completing a baby barrel.
Again, I am holding out that Toledo is merely roping us all as dopes and will deliver one of, if not the, greatest sporting stories of all time by overcoming fear and mental anguish etc. to win gold.
Nick Carroll thinks otherwise.
To whom will the brave coward listen?
More as the story develops.