When you think of professional surfing, California, Pipeline, Australia, Hawaii, USA... automatically come to mind, but in the last 11 years, 8 world champions have been Brazilian (and we still can't even name 3 waves in Brazil). So what are they doing in Brazil? What has been the method that is generating so many world champions without the world turning to look at the country of samba and football??

Below, we tell you a bit about what has been happening in Brazil since the 90s.

The Brazilian “flavor” behind the Brazilian Storm

By Susi Borges

In the last ten years, the elite world surfing rankings have been dominated by green and yellow colors. Between 2014 and 2025, Brazilian athletes won eight World Surf League (WSL) world titles. The impact was so strong that it quickly got its own name: the "Brazilian Storm" was born, named by the Americans themselves.

But, before surprising the international scene, Brazilian surfing went through a silent decade of restructuring. Starting in the 2000s, strategic movements began to transform the reality of the sport in the country, giving way to a highly competitive and creative generation.

The base came with strength

The 90s were coming to an end when surf competitions began to expand along Brazilian beaches. With a favorable economy and major brands booming, coastal communities had enough support to organize circuits almost every weekend.

Lúcio Wengrover, a surfer and promoter in southern Brazil, witnessed this explosion of competitions firsthand. “Grassroots circuits were fundamental in this professionalization process. These are events that grew stronger with excellent prizes and naturally boosted the training of new athletes,” he says.

This expansion was also possible thanks to the commitment of local communities, which had their own associations and organized their circuits. These small nuclei still facilitate access for amateur athletes to the federations, which are responsible for competitors from each Brazilian state, all the way up to the country's highest sports body, CB Surf.

In Ubatuba, on the coast of São Paulo, the Student Surf Festival was created, an example of a local initiative aimed at training competitors. “This is where many young people have their first contact with the competitive environment, with rules, scores, heats…”, explains the president of the Ubatuba Surf Association (AUS), Cleiton Félix. In addition to technical improvement, learning began to include heat strategy, wave selection, and score reading. “Instead of merely evolving in the sea, beginners began to train to win competitions,” he adds.

Power beyond the sea

With the culture of circuits solidifying, the competitive instinct awakened in a generation that previously saw surfing only as a lifestyle. Only the last piece of the puzzle remained to be perfected: physical preparation.

Training began to prioritize muscle explosion, flexibility, and agility, attributes that today define the new Brazilian school, based on progressive maneuvers and aerials. Eduardo Takeuchi, a specialist in physiology and sports training methodology, works with surfers on the world circuit and explains this transition: “Generating muscular power reflects the shift towards training that integrates explosive strength, speed, and coordination, essential for executing aerial and progressive maneuvers consistently, something that marked the rise of the Brazilian Storm generation.”

In more advanced stages, preparation becomes highly systematized. “It's specific training, with controlled loads, to generate speed and strength at the exact moment: launching a high aerial, a quick snap, a progressive maneuver with power and control,” notes Eduardo.

This more technical preparation produced rapid and sustained results, supported by solid training in the youth categories. Lúcio Wengrover, mentioned at the beginning of the article, experienced this transformation at home. His son, Luigi Wengrover, is following the path opened in the 2000s. At 18 (he has been surfing since he was 10), he began his transition to professionalism in 2023. With the support of incentive programs from the government of Rio Grande do Sul, the athlete already has a multidisciplinary team: psychologist, physical trainer, nutritionist, and physiotherapist. And it is this increasingly professional and early preparation that explains not only the power of the Brazilian Storm, but also its permanence at the top.

Media explosion + numbers

· Brazil transformed surf events into entertainment: music, brand activations, and direct interaction with athletes, using the NBA and Formula 1 as references.

· The economic impact grew, public motivation to be on the beach increased, as did hotel occupancy.

· Today, Brazil represents 40% of the global audience for WSL broadcasts, according to the league's own data.

· The country has more than 45 million surf enthusiasts, equivalent to 41% of Brazilians connected to the sport in some way. In 2013, there were about 14 million (26%). In less than a decade, interest practically tripled.

· WSL events held in Brazil mobilized approximately $22 million in 2023. Saquarema beach alone generated about $19 million and nearly 500 jobs.

· Brazil is also expanding its wave pool infrastructure (3 in operation and 7 under construction until 2027), facilitating high-level training for the generation formed in the Brazilian Storm era.

The Brazilian Storm is here to stay, and it's hard to see who can knock them off the podium in the coming years (especially with John John Florence out of competition).

Miguel Pupo has already won the first stop of the 2026 CT and leads the ranking, followed by fellow Brazilians Yago Dora and Gabriel Medina. It's time to turn our attention to Brazil and start studying the Brazilian method and system, which is truly a factory of world champions.