Filipe Toledo

Brazilian professional surfer who became World Surf League Champion in 2021 and 2022, known for his aerial maneuvers and progressive surfing style.

Filipe Toledo built his career on a shot most surfers use sparingly: the aerial, a full mid-air rotation off the wave's lip that's high-risk and, when it lands, nearly impossible for judges to score low. He turned that specialty into back-to-back WSL World Championships in 2021 and 2022, at a time when the tour's judging criteria were shifting to reward exactly the kind of progressive, air-first surfing his generation grew up practicing. His father Ricardo, who coached him from childhood on Brazil's Ubatuba coastline, built training sessions specifically around aerial repetition rather than the more traditional focus on wave selection and rail surfing that shaped earlier generations of champions -- a deliberate bet on a style of surfing that hadn't yet been fully rewarded by the sport's scoring system when Toledo was coming up. That bet paid off at exactly the moment judging caught up with the maneuver, putting Toledo at the front of a generational shift in what winning surfing is supposed to look like, rather than adapting to a style that already existed.

Progressive, aerial-focused surfing with exceptional technical ability and innovative maneuvers

Revolutionized modern surfing with progressive aerial maneuvers and helped establish Brazil as a dominant force in professional surfing

• WSL World Championship 2021
• WSL World Championship 2022