Ferreira and Moore: first ever surf gold at the Olympics

Carissa Moore, United States,  has won the first-ever women’s shortboard Olympic gold medal beating South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag while Italo Ferreira emerged victorious against Igarashi. 

History was made at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics as surfing debuted at the Games. After days of competition, we have the final results of the surfing category. American Carissa Moore won the surfing shortboard event, taking down South Africa’s Bianca Buitendag, 14.93- 8.46 in the final match. 

A slow start at the Women’s Shortboard category

Their match started slowly at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach as each surfer looked for the right opportunity to score points, but with just 20 minutes left in the match, Moore decided to call her shot with a 7.33 and pulled ahead in the competition. 

The South African scored a 2.40 to close the gap but Moore nailed a 7.60 on her next wave, erasing the previous score and winning the historic gold medal. The third place went to Japan’s Amuro Tsuzuki. 

Carissa Moore is native of Honolulu, Hawaii and has won the World Surf League World Champion four times. She entered Tokyo as the No. 1 ranked surfer in the world and the state of Hawaii has even named a day after her, declaring January 4th to be Carissa Moore Day. Now, she has also won the first gold surf Olympic medal.

Brazil’s Italo Ferreira rides to the first Olympic gold

In the Men’s category, Brazilian Italo Ferreira was able to overcome challenging conditions at the final and won the gold medal at the Tsurigasaki Beach earlier on today.

He was able to recover from breaking his board on the first wave and beat Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi at the final. The 27-year-old Brazilian scored 7.0 and 7.77 and led the competition early as Igarashi struggled on the beach where his father learned how to surf. In the third place, Australia’s Owen Wright took the bronze after battling with world number one Gabriel Medina. 

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"I think it's one of the best days of my life, for sure. For me that was a long day and it was a dream come true, for sure. The last couple of months I've been training a lot, just to live in this moment," - Italo Ferreira.