Watch: Curveball ft. Dimitri Poulos

In June last year, OG Chapter 11 filmmaker Mini Blanchard released a “winter reel” featuring Dimitri Poulos freesurfing around Ventura—footage compelling enough to warrant an immediate phone call.

Dimitri informed Stab he had been cut loose by Red Bull and O’Neill during the historic sponsorship purge of October 2023—despite leading the North American QS rankings, winning the Slo Cal Open at Pismo Beach, and dutifully fulfilling every last contract obligation.

“Unfortunately, with the industry going in the toilet, I just kind of got the short end of the stick,” he explained. Dimitri took it in stride, expressing optimism about ‘diversifying’ his skillset outside a jersey. Though, the situation underscored the industry’s ongoing failure to support cream young talent, who if born 10 years earlier, would likely be NASCAR’d to the nines.

And which is probably why winning the inaugural La Marginal Surfing Pro in Puerto Rico only months later—on a blank-nosed Timmy Paterson—feel really, really fucking good.

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Chapter 11 explains:

“We’ve been watching Dimitri develop his skills surfing around town for a while now, but we often head toward different spots and link up with different filmers, so it’s taken some time to put together a proper Dimitri part. Lately, though, more than enough clips have landed on our hard drives to make it undeniable—we need to showcase his talent. Dimitri is one of the best up-and-coming surfers repping Ventura right now.”

Indeed. 

Someone throw him some bones.