The trajectory of the blue surf champion: ten years ago in Hawaii the breakdown of two vertebrae put his career at risk, today he enjoys the glory of a second place that is worth gold
We like to think that karma has to do with it, but surely the ingredients of this story are also others. Leonardo Fioravanti A few days ago he touched his first victory in the Championship Tour of the World Surf League. It was in Pipeline, Hawaii, on the wave, and in the most glorious race in the world. This is a news that we now know, and his defeat “on equal merit”, imposed only because the contender Barron Mamiya had a wave evaluated better by the judges, made a lot of discussion since the WSL on social networks was submerged by criticisms – Actually a real Shitstorm in which he wanted to say his too Kelly Slater – Arrive from every corner of the globe (not only from Italy). But how many remember that precisely among the jaws of the wave of Pupukea Beach, ten years ago the prodigy of Cerveteri he risked ending his career breaking your back?
the injury
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A geological era seems to have passed, but it was only 2015. Fioravanti was 17 years old, he was a promising teen athlete who blew in the QS, the qualifying series, dreaming of arriving among the adults. In Pipeline, spot of the North Shore by Oahuat the time the last race of the tour was still played, scheduled in December. But well before he was and is the kingdom of many other competitive battles. Fioravanti presented himself at the end of January for the Volcom Pipe Proqualification contest from three thousand points (not even the maximum), directly accessing the round 3 of the scoreboard. In a battery of Hawaiian alone played on January 31, Leo enters the water with determination by dressing the red Lycra. But on the second wave, one of Pipeline’s classic sinister bombs, perhaps a little too late, the tail of his table loses adherence. He is slammed down while the junk lip, which downloads tons of water, collapses over his back. It can be a wipeout like many others, but it will not be. Two broken vertebraetorn ligaments and at least two months of rehabilitation, which will then become four, are the verdict. Nothing insurmountable, given the miracles of medicine, but nevertheless then some questions all asked them: how will her body and mind react? Will he return to compete at the same levels? Is it the end of a promising career?
the recovery
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Those who follow sport know that situations of this kind can be a watershed, on the one hand perhaps a mediocre sporting future, who knows perhaps in the intermediate categories, on the other satisfaction and much greater aspirations. The boy with the number 46 printed on the shirt of the race is not lost in mind. At the end of May 2015 he returned to move the first strokes in the waves, a few months later he presented himself almost surprisingly to an Italian race, the Marinedda Bay in Red Isolacarried out in early September in Sardinia. The family, inevitable, his brother and father accompanied him, and then around many friends like Roberto D’Amico with whom he also shared the podium (Leo Primo), and still a host of people who already admired him and loved him, because Fioravanti He was already flourishing at the time. Maybe just a little less distant from Italy, from the Italians, from the many surfers who saw him grow on the line up and have incited him, seeing in him also a moral redemption that partly remedied the inferiority complex to be Born with the Mediterranean around, and not an ocean.
The first trophy
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That was the first race after the serious injury, and certainly it could not be compared to an international competition, but it was still a test that helped him regain confidence. And what confidence. A month later, Fioravanti took the first – and so far unique – trophy: the Under 18 gold medal at the Juniores Isa championships in California. Still later he reached the qualification in the Championship Tour, ensuring it for several years to come from 2018. And here we are already in the history of our day. The one lost with Mamiya was not the first final of the top league, but the second. The first had always arrived in Pipeline in 2023, his best season ever. But that time losing, he hurt: the Australian Jack Robinson won with an abundance of two points on small and dirty waves from the wind. Saturday 8 February 2025, at the Lexus Pipe Pro, with marine conditions worthy of the blazon of a dangerous and difficult wave, Arriving seconds was painful.
Look to the future
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There are many if and many but, speculations on the scores, on the errors of the judges, on the fact that Barron Mamiya He played at home, he firmly led the Heat and may have been favored. But judging the surf still has something very subjective and is full of unexpected variables, and who will still present themselves, as they have been able to see everyone at the Olympics. But the fact remains that Fioravanti touched Really His first stage victory, indeed for many he has been stolen from him. A possible future success It certainly represents one of its primary objectives. Everyone saw the change of pace, both of approach and of attitude, especially compared to the past year. The pipe race went, the spine injury is behind him, forgotten by everyone, and perhaps also by Leo, who has always had a ability to get back out of the ordinary. The ingredients are there, and therefore not only Pipeline’s karma, that so much given him, and so much more he has removed him. Character, tenacity, competitiveness, competitiveness, mental hardness; pushed to the maximum: the identikit of a blue champion that turns the pages quicklyand that still wants to excel.
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