TIAGO PIRES

DON'T UNDERSTAND PORTUGUESE? THEN HERE'S A LITTLE MORE ABOUT TIAGO PIRES ...

Portugal is perhaps the greatest seafaring nation in history, but you can forget reliving the feats of heroic men with wigs like Magellan and De Gama. Nowadays you need look no further than Ericeira's modern marine machine, Tiago Pires.

Few would know when Tiago hatched from the womb in Lisbon Hospital in 1980 (and was ferried straight to his coastal crib 30 miles away at Ericeira) that he would become the golden child of Portuguese surfing.

Tiago busted his grommet chops in the beachbreaks of Ribeira D' Ilhas, and soon after was negotiating the deathly urchins of Coxos, which are extra deathly when you are not much bigger than them. At a time when the crisp rights of Coxos became a vogue travel-stop for pro surfers, the likes of Shane Herring and Shane Powell made an impression on the local kids, with their new lines drawing strange new graffiti along the famous point.

At this time, the older local surfing community broke away from the Ericeira Naval Club and set up their surfing-only club (Ericeira Surf Club) and took the freakishly capable Tiago under their wing. He won events all over Europe without raising a sweat, acquired the name "Saca", and before long murmurings of "that kid from Portugal" had seeped to industry crackas and other groms from San Clemente to Sydney.

In 2000, the mysterious kid became a little less mysterious and a whole lot more badass when he terrorised huge Sunset, steamrolling his way to the final, Andy Irons and previous winner Zane Harrison couldn't touch him, and it was only a devastatingly in-form Sunny Garcia who could halt Tiago from taking the trophy back home to Portugal.

Tiago had nailed a notice on surfing's front door, he was a force to be reckoned with, even more so if it got big. After a stint on the domestic Euro tour, he hit the road and travelled from pole to pole, surfing heats at any beach that dared put up a scaffold. Before long he had his first win, The Irago Pro at Japan's Loco Point ...

Enter the Snakes'N'Ladders game of near-miss WQS graduation. (The WQS ladder's top rungs are greased, and combined with sweaty hands made from hard work, can send the most deserving tumbling back into the morass.) Tiago missed out on WCT qualification by only the cruellest and slimmest margins, but his time would come.

In the meantime something else would change his life much closer to home. As Tiago slept, 40 feet of Atlantic hurricane swell was marching towards his hometown. Tiago recieved a phone call from Francois Peyot, he and his French tow crew were chasing the swell to Tiago's local big wave break \Cascais. Tiago joined them at Cascais in the morning and put in the performance of his life.

His maniacal charging had an immediate effect, the local Portuguese lining the cliff, and the news and TV crews meant Tiago was a national hero.

With the hopes of a proud nation behind him, Tiago made '07 his year. He squirreled himself away to the deserts of Morocco twice before the WQS tour had got underway, the sound of chanting on his Moroccan sojourn was then replaced back in Portugal with the sound of weights clanking in his ears at the local gym.

... And now as he enters his first year in the Thunderdome, he's even fitter, and without arrogance he says: "All I want is to win - it's a good feeling."