To many people across the world who are neither particularly into football or surfing: the word Brazilian most likely conjures up an especially racy bikini wax for ladies. (For that matter – why not for men as well. We at Trident are all about gender neutrality and that sorta woke kak.) For those of us however that are into either, or both – football and surfing, the Brazilians are known as a nation annoyingly good at both. (That being said, we at Trident have no outright objection to a Brazilian onslaught of the wax kind. To reiterate – no, not surf wax.)
Moving along.
Seeing as this is a surfing website, we’re not about to discuss the South Americans’ prowess when it comes to soccer. Suffice it to say, we’ve sat through several Football World Cups, mildly pleased Brazil didn’t win it. Again. It all becomes a bit samey, in our humble opinion. Especially ‘coz they cry all the time when they lose their big soccer matches. And to be fair, after watching Toledo just pip (Huh?! See what we did there?!) our beloved Jordy in the finals of the Margaret River Pro, we can’t help but feel we’ve seen this story before.
“Copacabana – Rio de Janeiro” by Newclick is marked under CC0 1.0. To view the terms, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/cc0/1.0/
Don’t get Trident wrong. We’re suitably impressed with how the Brazzo’s surf. Medina is not everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s no denying the boy is seriously, supremely talented. The dude isn’t the Men’s current WSL Number 1 because of his charming smile or ‘coz of his stepfather’s crazy antics distracting the judges from scoring any of his competitors favourably.
Likewise in terms of talent you have Filipe Toledo, whose Margaret River win right now might not have pushed him past his fellow countrymen at Number 1 and Number 2. And… Yup, former World Champ Italo Ferreira is current Number 2. It’s all sounding a bit Groundhog Day.
Meanwhile, Tatiana Weston-Webb, whose name sounds rather more American or a reject from Downton Abbey than Brazilian, has just kicked some serious butt in the Women’s competition. If memory serves however, and if her surname wasn’t a dead giveaway, Tatiana is actually of mixed lineage. (Ed’s note: starting this sentence with “if memory serves” basically means you’re too lazy to research her background properly. Author’s note: Noted with thanks, Ed. Now bugger off.)
Anyhow, the minutiae of Tatiana’s lineage aside, she’s literally the only Brazilian lady on tour and look and where she’s sitting. A big fat Number two. If that isn’t a sign the Brazilians are dumping horse steroids mixed with the genetically amplified blood cells of Kelly Slater into their lineups to improve their surfing skill to superhuman levels – then I don’t know what is. Especially their bloody airs. I reckon they all have helicopter parts cybernetically grafted onto them at birth.
So here’s the big question – why? Why are they dominating so much of late? Trident feels it’s their inherent hunger combined with their Latino passion. Sure, Brazil is a big country, far bigger than SA and Oz, but it’s not quite as big as the States. In other words, the US has no excuse. SA has a small surfing population, relatively speaking – yet we have no shortage of talent. What we perhaps lack though is the Brazilians’s insatiable hunger to do well. Now that cannot be genetically modified, no matter what country you find yourself in. And if your nation doesn’t produce the goods soon, we will have a continued and prolonged onslaught of Brazilians. (Fingers crossed it’s of the waxing kind.)
