Surf, Marcio Freire dies at sea in Nazaré overwhelmed by a wave – Corriere.it

the paradise of surfers in search of big waves
, the giant waves. The place discovered in 2010 by surfing legend Garrett McNamara, the place where he challenged the 100 Foot Waves (the 100-foot wave, just over 30 meters, which also gave the title to the docu-series produced in 2021 by Hbo and whose second season will soon arrive). For the first time, however, Nazar, in Portugal, a hundred kilometers north of Lisbon, has turned into hell. Just a wave, the one he was trying to ride with his board with which he had surfed in seas around the world, overwhelmed and killed the 47-year-old Brazilian Marcius Freire.

The rescue efforts were useless, his heart had already stopped. Rescuers found that the victim was in cardio-respiratory arrest, immediately starting resuscitation maneuvers on the sand. After several attempts, it was not possible to save the situation they explained by the Port Authority. Freire was a pioneer of the big wave surfing. He has inspired a new generation of big wave surfers and was one of three Brazilian surfers who became famous under the nickname Mad Dogs, after conquering the legendary wave of Jaws, in Hawaii, where he had lived for over twenty years since 1998. In 2020 he returned to Brazil and the community of surfers from all over the world, for whom he was a point of reference, describes him as someone who didn’t like the spotlight.

Marcio Freire is the first death linked to surfing in the waters of Nazarfor a decade the most famous place in the world for big wave surfing. The area famous for the Nazar Canyon, the submarine depression 170 kilometers long and five deep which favors the formation of waves tens of meters high. The surfer, his compatriot, Thiago Jacare paid tribute on Instagram to the friend and colleague who he called more than an idol and a true hero. Precisely in Nazar, in October 2020, the German Sebastian Steudtner – a close friend of Jurgen Klopp, who also invited him to train with Liverpool in the summer of 2019 – established the world record for the biggest wave ever surfed (it was 26.2 meters high).