A Learner Surfer Might’ve Spelled An Early End To Italo’s El Salvador Campaign
World No. 1 injured by rogue logger, and a mystery wildcard emerges…
El Salvador is already heating up, and the event hasn’t even started.
Let’s start with the facts before we start smearing speculation across the walls.
On Wednesday, June 3, Italo Ferreira was run over by a novice surfer at Sunzal Beach (2.7 km from Punta Roca) and received eight stitches in his right knee.
According to our sources, world number one was in the water with his wife, Sofia Larocca, when a beginner longboarder took an ill-advised line and half-amputated the Olympic gold medalist’s leading leg.
According to the Wozzle:
“The athlete was promptly attended to by a local medical team, underwent the necessary procedures, and is doing well. Italo is currently medicated, pain-free, and continues to be monitored by the medical staff accompanying him.”
In other words: Italo has not officially withdrawn from the event. But a knee injury requiring sutures, two days out from a CT expected to run in solid swell? A stitch-up, if you will.
Now for more non-fiction.
There is currently a mystery wildcard seeded into the first round of the men’s draw against South Africa’s Luke Thompson. That wildcard is not local invite Bryan Perez. It is also not Jordy Smith’s injury replacement, Matt McGillivray.
Which brings us to the fun part.
Conspiracy!
In the four-year history of CTs in El Salvador, only four men have ever hoisted the Surf City trophy: Filipe Toledo, Griffin Colapinto, Jordy Smith, and John Florence.
The last name on that list had plans to cross from the Caribbean through the Panama Canal, according to his recent StabMic ep. That could put him around Central America’s Pacific Coast at this very moment.
In JJF’s latest Instagram post — a powerful flex and pertinent reminder that the world’s best surfer is currently living on a boat, rinsing off sea legs with boned-out straighties on empty pointbreaks — the comments section quickly filled with amateur geocachers trying to triangulate his whereabouts.
Then Filipe Toledo dropped this:
“El Sal ! Getting the wildcard yeah ? Hahaha good stuff bro”
A sentence, probably a tongue in cheek remark, that activated our wishful thinking faculties.
Sadly, they’ve been hosed down by his boat’s GPS, has him anchored in Panama still…
For what it’s worth, sailing from the Pacific side of Panama — Balboa — to El Salvador is roughly 600 to 800 nautical miles, depending on the route and stops. For a typical cruising sailboat moving at 5–6 knots, that’s about five to eight days of continuous sailing.
If you were already sailing past an event you’ve won before, and the WSL suddenly had a mystery wildcard slot open, would you not at least consider hopping off the boat and giving them a free lesson?
One can only hope. Though at this point, it’s looking next-to-nil, unless he switches his mode of transport.
As for our unannounced mystery surfer… Russell Winter? Tab Textor?
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