Ichinomiya (Japan) (AFP)
The Brazilian Italo Ferreira became the first Olympic surfing champion in history on Tuesday, during the Tokyo Olympics, whose events were contested in Ichinomiya in Chiba prefecture, about a hundred kilometers to the far east of the capital. Japanese.
Ferreira defeated Japan's Kanoa Igarashi in the final, Australia's Owen Wright taking the bronze medal.
"The Olympics is obviously one of my main goals this year, I trained a lot for that, I'm really into it," Ferreira told AFP before the Games.
As a child, Italo Ferreira rode on a polystyrene plate.
But it is Olympic gold that this son of a fisherman from northeastern Brazil came to seek at the Tokyo Games, crowned with his 2019 world champion title.
"One day, a cousin lent me a board. It was broken, but it was still better than polystyrene," the 27-year-old surfer told AFP.
Ferreira is a proud representative of the "Brazilian storm", the Brazilian storm that has rocked world surfing for almost a decade.
Three Brazilians occupy the first places in the world ranking, with Italo Ferreira, Gabriel Medina (4th in Tokyo) and Felipe Toledo, not qualified for the Olympics, each country being limited to two representatives.
The professional worlds (private circuit of the World Surf League) and amateur (International Surfing Federation) have agreed to offer a very beautiful show by allowing the elite of surfers to participate in the Tokyo Olympics - where the discipline is an additional sport - by renouncing the principle of an artificial basin to favor a natural site.
© 2021 AFP