Leader of the WSL (World Surfing League in English) ranking and already mathematically guaranteed in the finals, an event that defines the champion of the season, Surfer Yago Dora, 29, tries to write a chapter he considered unimaginable for a short time ago.
The Curitibano created in Florianópolis can reach early next month, in Fiji, the post of fifth Brazilian world champion of sport. Already won the Gabriel Medina Championship, three times, Filipe Toledo, two, Adriano de Souza and Italo Ferreira.
“I’ve been trying to find myself for many years and be able to put my performance in the competitions. I feel that it was slow to me, I had difficulty seeing me like someone who could earn steps or even fight for a title. I just couldn’t,” he said.
Dora has an unusual trajectory in the sport. In initiation considered late, 11 years old, he dreamed of becoming a soccer player before definitely changing the ball for the board, with insistent incentives from his father, former surfer and now coach Leandro Dora, known as Cricket.
The arrival in the world elite of the Championship Tour took over in 2017, when he was invited to participate in the Rio Pro stage in Saquarema, and debunted names already consolidated such as Gabriel Medina, John John Florence and Mick Fanning, reaching the semifinals. From 2018, however, accumulated disappointments.
“At first, surfing was frustrating to me,” he told a documentary produced in 2023. “I was frustrated and crying because I couldn’t show my level,” he said.
The best level appeared in 2023, again in Saquarema, with the title of the Brazilian stage of the circuit.
“I knew my surfing level was good, but I couldn’t put it all in the competition. It was a time process, learning from defeats. I’ve always covered myself a lot for it, but I really think that in the last three years I started visualizing myself as someone who could fight for steps and something bigger.
But even with good performance in 2023 and 2024, he ended up out of the finals, ending these seasons as seventh and sixth, respectively – the top five are qualified. For him, it was still necessary a last shock: changing coach, replacing his own father.
“Last year was a moment of transition. I started making some decisions and making changes in my career, making the reins. I have always been very much in my father’s tutelage and, now as an adult, 29, I felt this need to be responsible for my future,” he said.
Dora chose an old acquaintance, Leandro da Silva, with whom he competed and trained in his teens and also worked for his father.
“It was a very difficult decision to make. It was a job with my father, it has all the affection between father and son, but I feel it has been very positive. I know Leandro from kid, we have a very good connection. Dad and son end up mixing things a little,” he said.
In Teahupo’o’s stage, the last of the regular season, which began this Thursday (7), in Tahiti, in the French Polynesia, he has already secured a place in the round of 16. The result already assures him at least the second place at the end of the World Cup classification phase.
Yago hopes to go far at Tahiti, but calculates the risks thinking about the final event in Fiji. Despite the perfect tubes, the teahup’o stage is one of the most feared of the circuit due to the unusual force of the waves, formed on an abyssal fossa of over 1,400 meters deep.
“I know I already have my place and larger plans than trying to play the hero or throwing me to do the wave of the day,” he said.
If you support the leadership of the ranking-for this, without depending on the result of South African Jordy Smith, you just have to advance to the semifinals-Dora will come into the finals. In the final stage, the fifth place faces the room to decide who faces the third. From this duel comes the opponent of the second. And only in this confrontation is the rival of the first.
Unlike until last year, it is enough for the leader to win his first battery to get the title. In case of defeat of the first place, the dispute is better than three.
