Filipe Toledo and João Chianca fight for the Surfing World Cup – 09/06/2023 – Sport

The once agitated Filipe Toledo, 28, appears extremely calm. The young João Chianca, 23, the popular Chumbinho, is also keen to show serenity. Through different routes, they arrive lightly at the stage that will decide the surfing World champion.

Current champion, Toledo needs to win just two more heats to secure the bi. Ranking leader, the São Paulo native from Ubatuba is aware that the path to the title is simply to maintain consistency throughout the season. “Constancy, constancy, constancy”, he repeats.

Fourth in the championship, Chumbinho is also light, basically for the opposite reason. If many expect Filipe to win again, few bet on Saquarema from Rio de Janeiro. Neither does he. “You could say that Lowers is a bonus.”

The World Cup has been decided on the waves of Lower Trestles, California, in the United States, since 2021. It was when the WSL (World Surfing League) adopted a new format for the event, concluded in a stage with the top five of the rank.

The fourth faces the fifth for the right to face the third. From this confrontation comes the opponent of the following. Only then can the leader’s rival be decided, who awaits him for a decision in the best of three heats. Everything is solved in one day, with the window open from the 8th to the 16th of this month, waiting for the best sea conditions.

Thus, Chumbinho has to beat the Australians Jack Robinson and Ethan Ewing and the North American Griffin Colapinto to finally measure forces with Toledo. Who was in the water at the end of the tournament in the two previous editions held in the format – he lost to compatriot Gabriel Medina and beat fellow countryman Italo Ferreira.

“Without a doubt, it’s constancy. When you have constancy, you end up, in the minds of other athletes, becoming someone very difficult to beat. People link constancy to that, to that thing of being unbeatable”, said Filipe.

“I’m not bragging,” he insisted on adding, slowly, with a calm that he didn’t show in his first years on the circuit. The man from São Paulo broke boards, raged at judges, and was suspended. There, he found himself when he started to face everything in a lighter way, with the help of his wife and children, mentioned in practically all of his answers.

“I started to understand all of this. It’s about enjoying the process, being light, being happy, not making it an obligation. I understood this formula and said: ‘Man, this is how it has to be’. It was the first year that I had more fun. And I was world champion. So, there was no reason to be different the following year”, he said.

It contributes to this state of mind and to the calm before the decision the fact that he is at home: Toledo lives in San Clemente, stage of the final. Chumbinho admits that he barely knows California and, although he has surfed in Trestles, he has never competed in a first-level event there.

Chianca is only in its second year at the circuit’s elite, a year of unexpected results and experiences. “It was a few years within one, right?”, smiled the man from Rio de Janeiro, who started the season at a very high level, won the Peniche stage, in Portugal, in March, and became leader of the ranking.

“I’m still trying to process how it was this year. I certainly did much better than I expected”, observed the young man, happy with what he achieved in the first legs of the competition. “It can work when we put the energy in the right place.”

In the second half of the circuit, Chumbinho was unable to maintain his level and was out of the quarterfinals in the four most recent stages. But he treated the downturn as a learning experience and, albeit just barely, remained among the top five.

“People started to treat me like a veteran surfer, based on my results at the beginning of the season. But we knew that stumbles could come eventually. We experienced many new things and, next season, we will be better prepared”, he said.

In this process, Chianca got one of the two direct places for Brazil in the next Olympic Games. He was ahead of Medina, three-time world champion – who will try, in a qualifying tournament in February, to be the third Brazilian representative in Paris-2024.

“I’m very grateful. The place in the Olympics was the icing on the cake”, said the serene and, for the moment, satisfied, Chianca. For the equally serene but still hungry Toledo, the icing on the cake will be the bi.