All hail the new king of Teahupoo!
The Brazilian small-wave wizard Filipe Toledo, who completed both his world titles in soft three-foot waves, has emerged as the shock favourite to win Olympic surf gold after a masterly performance at Teahupoo this afternoon.
In beautiful four-ish foot waves, a little bigger on the sets, Filipe Toledo caught a long drainer, a little bit of south swell with some west thrown in, and exhibited all those skills surf fans knew he had but were kept under wraps either by fear or a desire to create an air of mystery coming into the Olympic Games.
His score? A 9.67, the second-highest of the event.
Chas Smith picked it seven months ago when he asked, “Is Filipe Toledo pretending to be scared of Teahupoo?”
“What if Filipe Toledo is playing a game of rope-a-dope with the world; what if Filipe’s masterplan was to make the world think he was too scared to paddle into a set at Teahupoo and then, with Olympic gold on the line, create one of the most unlikely wins in Games history?”
Filipe Toledo, who is now only three heats away from the medal rounds, was delighted with the result and posted 25 different angles of the wave on his Instagram account.
Deservedly so.
One of the great Olympic moments etc.