The greatest surfers from all over the globe will be in town this week for the US Open of Surfing to either compete or take part in the various events. One of the most prestigious of these events is the Surfers’ Hall of Fame induction ceremony.
This will take place on Friday morning, Aug. 4, at the SHOF plaza on the corner of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway, directly across the street from the pier and in front of Huntington Surf & Sport. It starts promptly at 9 a.m., and will run about 90 minutes.
This year marks the 26th year for the SHOF inductions and the ceremony is open to the public free of charge. It’s a super cool event to see and possibly meet some of the world’s greatest, both past and present, surfers and surf celebrities.
This year’s honorees are high-powered International Surfing Association President Fernando Aguerre, The Orange County Register’s very own super surf journalist Laylan Connelly, and the great Brazilian professional surfer Italo Ferreira. Over the past two of my columns, I have featured both Aguerre and Connelly, today I would like to tell you about Italo Ferreira.
The story of Italo and his rise to the top of the surfing world is one of those “made for Hollywood” kinda deals. He was the son of a fisherman in a small town on the northern coast of Brazil and started surfing at the age of 8.
His first board was the lid to an ice cooler.
He then borrowed boards from his older cousins who surfed and he dedicated himself to being a surfer. As he progressed, he began winning junior and regional events, which led up to qualifying for the World Tour in 2014, becoming Rookie of the Year.
Earning a reputation as one of the most high-powered and “explosive”surfers on the tour, as well as one of the most entertaining to watch, he began is rise to the top in 2019. He began the year winning the first event and went on to take the Red Bull Airborne title and capped the year by capturing first place at the…
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