Busy Caparica Surf Fest Week Gets Underway in Pumping Surf in Portugal

The Caparica Surf Fest powered by Oakley launched today in building surf and strong onshore winds to complete an astonishing 56 heats on two separate banks, covering men’s QS and Junior action as well as women’s QS.

The surf almost doubled in size between the morning heats that unfolded in grey weather with a slight drizzle and the afternoon pumping action when the sun came out and crowds gathered to watch the battles from the beach.

The talented 18 year-old surfer from Guadeloupe posted an impressive 15.57 heat total to advance in first out of Round 2. Starting right from the opening round, Debierre will once again have a long road ahead if he wants to reach the finals of this event, which he has won as a Junior back in 2016.

“I had a good rest over the weekend and came back fired up today for some more,” Debierre stated. “I’ve surfed a few times here in the past and really appreciate it, it’s a powerful, long open wall so that really fits with my surfing. I’ve had some successes in the past here, I won once and got a third last year so I’m hoping for more. I’ve had a pretty terrible season last year, plagued by injuries but now I feel good physically and I’m happy to be making heats.”

Yesterday, the Junior Pro Espinho culminated with an impressive performance from Justin Becret (FRA), who unsurprisingly, given the opportunity to do battle with older competitors, came out firing today in the opening rounds of the QS. Becret belted his own two high-7s to take the win into Round 3, and will juggle back-and-forth between the junior and QS events in Caparica in the coming days.

“I really like those conditions, it’s solid and closes out a bit, I’m just having a lot of fun out there,” Becret said. “My focus is clearly on the junior event, so unfortunately if my heats coincide I’ll have to drop the QS, but so far so good. Like I said previously, I got really close to the European title last year and I don’t want to feel the disappointment again so I’m going to try my best to secure it this year.”

The winner in Espinho Rachel Presti (DEU) will open her account in Round 2 when the event resumes, but the task at hand won’t be easy as she’ll face the likes of former Championship Tour competitor Pauline Ado (FRA) and Portuguese star Teresa Bonvalot (PRT) on the Qualifying Series draw.

In Caparica this week, seven surfers have flown in from the Middle East with hopes of showing what most of us now know, that the territory of Israel has great waves, and great surfers. One of them, 16 year-old Siam Nikritin (ISR) advanced through both his heats today, leading the pack into Round 3 of the Caparica Surf Fest Junior Pro powered by Oakley.

“I’ve worked hard at home to make enough money to do the tour so this is going to be my first season doing all the events,” Nikritin said. “I’m very happy to be in Round 3 now, I made a couple of mistakes in that last heat and I came close to losing but I’ll learn from those and try to do better in the next one. We have a fun group here traveling with a coach and we hope to represent our country well. I think seeing all the pros come to Israel has definitely motivated some of us, there was always a lot of surfers, and good surfers in Israel, but the event helped getting people interested in competing.”

Competitors will be back on deck at 7:30 a.m Tuesday for a potential early start of Day 2 at the Caparica Surf Fest powered by Oakley.

The Caparica Surf Fest powered by Oakley is scheduled from April 15-20, 2019 at Praia do Paraiso, Costa da Caparica – Portugal. For all results, photos, video highlights and press releases, log on to worldsurfleague.com.