After a year and a half of waiting, Sebastian Steudtner can be happy about the recognition of his world record. The German surfer rode the highest wave ever surfed in Portugal. You can see the spectacle in the video here.
German surfer Sebastian Steudtner has set a world record for the highest wave ever surfed. The giant wave that the 37-year-old took in Nazaré, Portugal, in October 2020 was 26.21 meters in size. For this, Steudtner was awarded an entry in the Guinness Book of Records on Tuesday in the coastal town north of Lisbon.
“All mountains have been climbed, all deserts have been crossed. The only element that is still largely unexplored is water,” Steudtner told the dpa news agency. “Being able to perform in this element makes me proud.”
Steudtner beats the old record by more than two meters
It took the jury around a year and a half to measure the exact height of the wave on October 29, 2020. Steudtner has broken the previous record of the Brazilian Rodrigo Koxa. Koxa also surfed a 24.4 meter high wave in Nazaré in 2017. “It shows that anything is possible in life,” said Steudtner. “That’s not the world record for eating the most hot dogs or having the most piercings. It’s for surfing a wave created by nature.”
Steudtner has long been one of the best big wave surfers in the world. He has already won the most important award in his sport three times. Now the world record followed. At the age of 16, Steudtner had moved from Nuremberg to Hawaii to learn to surf.