Portugal Surf Awards 2021 distinguished the best Portuguese surfers
This Friday, the 12th second edition of the Portugal Surf Awards crowned the national surf champions Vasco Ribeiro and Francisca Veselko.
A gala night for national surfing, which brought together and awarded, in Lisbon, the highlights of the MEO Surf 2021 League and other individuals and entities that marked the competitive season.
The big winners of the night were Vasco, who won the fifth national title of his career, isolating himself in the list of male surfers with the most triumphs on the national circuit, and “Kika”, who debuted at a junior age. Each took home two trophies. In addition to the trophies of national champions, Vasco Ribeiro was distinguished for the best wave of the year, thanks to 10 points achieved in the stage of Figueira da Foz, while Francisca Veselko was the best female junior. On her turn, Yolanda Hopkins conquered the best wave of the year in women’s.
Among the various categories that distinguished the best of the year, the highlight was the election of Peniche as the best stage of the year, in an award that was decided by vote of the surfers themselves. The same surfers elected Halley Batista and Mafalda Lopes as winners of the Surfers’ Surfer trophy. The award for the greatest evolution of the year was given to Joaquim Chaves, after voting by the MEO Surf League media partners.
Mention is also given to the new award that distinguishes the club of the year and which was won by Ericeira Surf Clube, due to a decision inherent to the performance of its members.
The career award was given to the website Surftotal, for 20 years of existence, while judge Nuno Trigo was distinguished with the personality award, after having been present on the judges’ panel of the Tokyo Olympic Games’2020, where surfing made its debut Olympic. Finally, another of the great moments of the night was the distinction of José Ferreira as the winner of the second edition of the Pedro Lima Award, succeeding Gony Zubizarreta as the winner of an award that aims to honor the memory of the ill-fated surfer and actor and his fair posture play.
Thanks were also given to Pedro Monteiro, who was the Competition Director of the MEO Surf League from 2013 to 2021, and now ends his duties to embrace other professional challenges in Surfing.
