Raony Portilla shone through the fog in his longboard with a pinch of Brazilian sugar

The fifth day of the Eurosurf Junior 2024 had an unwelcome visitor in the form of fog that sat on Santa Cruz beaches and forced the organization to put the event on hold for almost four hours in the morning.

Still, there was time to have the return of the under 18 Longboard Divisions (boys and girls) and a standout performance by France’s Raony Portilla, that managed to win his heat and qualify for the main event final with a total of 14.1 (a 7.35 and a 6.75) thanks to an impressive display of classical longboarding punctuated by great style and flow, edging Portugal’s Francisco Freitas, that will also be in the main event final.

Raony, 18, is the son of a former world class longboarder from Brazil, Eduardo Bagé, who met and married the French woman that would become Raony’s mother.

“They met in a championship at Biarritz, and it was love at first sight”, says Raony with a smile.”

About his performance today, Raony says he was very pleased with the conditions today:

“We had great waves for the comp: small but long and ideal for longboarding and I enjoyed them a lot. Managed to win the heat and now I want to win the qualification final and then the big final as well.”

This is the first time that Raony Portilla is surfing for the national team and the goal is to “win back the title”:

“Of course we want to win back the European title. Today we lost some surfers and fell a little in the rankings but there is still a lot of heats to surf, and a lot can happen, so we are still hopeful. We believe in ourselves and the team spirit.”

 Replays... 

All pictures by Tiago Segurado for Ocean Spirit/ESF.