Caroline Marks moved up one spot in the rankings while Yago skyrocketed 11 spots. Photo: Manel Geada//World Surf League
After five days of patiently waiting out a powerful Atlantic storm, the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal returned to action with Yago Dora and Caroline Marks taking the wins. Dora defeated Italo Ferreira in an affair of frontside airs, while Marks ground out a win against Gabriela Bryan.
The wake of the storm made for variable wind that switched between holding up the barrels and crumbling them. As bouts of rain passed through Peniche, even us armchair surfers at home felt the storm’s residual damage to the broadcast equipment as we tried to power through a choppy webcast with no on-screen graphics for the first heats of the day. But, even with the ever-changing weather conditions, there were moments of brilliance when the sun shone through and Supertubos looked like it was going to put its best foot forward for the finals.
In the quarterfinals, Ethan Ewing drove through a cavernous left tube, successfully riding over the foam ball and exiting after the spit. Commentator Mitch Salazar called it the most perfect barrel we’d seen yet in the competition. The judges awarded Ewing a 9.17 – the highest score of the event. That tube sent Filipe Toledo packing, who made sure to flip the bird at the potential heat-winning wave when he was unable to scratch into it.
Ewing’s barrel was a moment that could have been interpreted as foreshadowing an epic finish to the day to come. However, it was anything but. It would be the last wave that cracked the eight-plus excellent range on the day. As the wind picked up and blew side-shore chop into the lefts, the rest of the heats became a grind to victory.
Ewing’s run came crashing to a halt as his 3.5 semifinal total was easily bested by Dora’s 12.83. Dora was coming off the day-high heat total (15.50) in the quarterfinals, which bested Jack Robinson, keeping his momentum strong into the final. Dora looked primed to get his second-ever CT win and his first since Rio 2023. But Ferreira, who had bested Dora in four of their six career CT matchups, stood in his path.
With the air wind blowing into the left, the men’s all goofy-foot final turned into a flurry of frontside airs. Yago kicked things off with a 6.67 full rotation. Italo responded with a loftier air reverse that was awarded 7.43 points for its height. Yago’s comeback was another full rotation air, this time with a stylish stalefish grab. He emphasized the grab difficulty with his body language after completing the maneuver, which the judges gave a 6.70.
The final was an air affair. Photo: Manel Geada//World Surf League
Eventually, the heat was winding down in its final minutes with Dora in the lead holding priority, sitting on Ferreira. Dora let Italo catch a wave under priority, which Italo used to do a straight air – not enough to surpass Dora, but a clever way to escape Dora’s priority. Dora tried to chase Italo north up the beach, but against the wind and current, he never got close. Italo’s plan almost worked, as a wave came to him, but he was only able to muster a 5-point air reverse that he didn’t even attempt to accentuate with a claim. He came up about a point short.
When the women’s semifinals took to the water in the morning, the stronger wind and shifting sandbars made wave selection a challenge. Gabriela Bryan was the only competitor to score a wave over six points in her semifinal heat, utilizing powerful rail surfing to narrowly eliminate Erin Brooks by a margin of just two-tenths of a point. On the other side of the draw, Marks took out Molly Picklum to meet Bryan in the final.
Despite getting stuck inside for a few desperate minutes in the tricky beachbreak conditions, Marks showed her knack for finding ways to win – whether at Teahupo’o in the Olympics or wind-blown, mushy beachbreak in Portugal. She mustered together a three and a 4.9 right off the bat, which held on to be enough to continue her career undefeated streak against Bryan (out of three matchups). “All those little beachbreaks I surfed in San Clemente and Florida paid off,” Marks said during her post-heat interview.
Caroline Marks is sneakily positioning herself for another title run. Photo: Laurent Masurel//World Surf League
Heading into tour stop number four of the season in El Salvador, Caity Simmers and Ferreira both retained their spots atop the women’s and men’s rankings, respectively. Dora’s win sent him skyrocketing 11 spots up the rankings to number four overall. Marks also gained ground in the rankings, moving up from fourth to third.
Mamiya, who had a disappointing 17th in Abu Dhabi after winning the opening stop at Pipeline, solidified his second-place ranking with a third-place result in Portugal. Last year he struggled to get results outside of Pipeline and Cloudbreak, so a good beachbreak result looks favorable for him as a candidate to break into the final five this year. After all, the power vacuum is open for the taking in the absence of Gabriel Medina and John John Florence.
Marks and Dora will look to carry their momentum into El Salvador, a stop they both excelled at last year. Marks is the reigning champ and Dora was the 2024 runner-up.
