Ítalo Ferreira

Ítalo Ferreira da Costa, born on 6 May 1994, is a Brazilian professional surfer from the small community of Baía Formosa in Rio Grande do Norte, on the northeastern coast of Brazil. He learned to surf as a child on the lid of a cooler his father used to carry fish, moved to a real board, and at about twelve was noticed and coached by Jadson Andre and the Brazilian surf coach Luiz Pinga Campos. He won two rounds of the 2011 Junior World Championship, took the Brazilian title and qualified for the World Championship Tour in 2014. He was Rookie of the Year in 2015 after finishing seventh, won events at Bells, Keramas and Supertubos in 2018, and won the Pipe Masters in 2019 to become World Surfing Champion for the first time. In 2021 he won the first men's Olympic surfing gold medal at the Tokyo Games, and he has since been world runner-up twice, in 2022 and 2024.