From teen pranksters to Olympians: The unique friendship of Jack Robinson, Kanoa Igarashi and Leonardo Fioravanti
What would it be like to face off against your 13-year-old self’s biggest foe as an adult?
Jack Robinson, Kanoa Igarashi and Leonardo Fioravanti do it all the time.
All hailing from different nations, the trio were first brought together through sponsored trips they earned as promising stars of the next surfing generation. Competitive by nature and born within weeks of each other, some of their heats would almost end up in fistfights. Out of the water, however, they called themselves brothers and would defend each other relentlessly.
Now adult obligations – marriage, engagement, fatherhood – have taken centre stage, but the three friends still find room for jokes, pranks and an occasional near fistfight as they criss-cross the world together for the biggest surfing competitions.
“Whenever we draw each other in the heats, it's a different sort of intensity. I feel like our 13-year-old selves shake us up a little bit and go, ‘Hey, this is the kid that we've always wanted to kill’,” Kanoa Igarashi said with a laugh. “We always have a sort of a prize between us. We want to be the best within our little group. It's always really intense. (When) we're in the water, we rarely talk to each other. And as soon as the heat's over, we just hug it out.”
The trio’s next destination is Paris 2024. For the first time, all three have qualified to the same Olympic Games.
We spoke to Australia’s Robinson, Japan’s Igarashi and Italy's Fioravanti about their teenage pranks, going to the Olympics together, and why surfing legend Kelly Slater will always be just an “uncle” to them.
Leonardo Fioravanti, Jack Robinson and Kanoa Igarashi never missed an opportunity to compete against each other, be that in surfing or Uno.
Three kids, four continents: “Our main language was surfing”
There is a video from 2010 documenting the adventures of 12-year-old Robinson, Igarashi and Fioravanti on a sponsored surf trip to the Gold Coast.
By that point, the “mini guns” were already being hailed as the future of surfing with Kelly Slater, arguably the greatest surfer of all time, also praising their skills.
Not that they let Slater’s compliments get to their heads.
“Kelly was so close to us,” Igarashi said. “He'd also be on these trips and put in situations where we'd be having dinner with him and hanging out with him and staying with him at events. It almost broke the barriers down."
"Instead of being ‘Kelly Slater - the best of all time’, he was kind of like my uncle and if your uncle tells you that you're going to be the next big thing, you're not going to think too much of it," Kanoa Igarashi to Olympics.com
While the three youngsters opted not to dwell on their future greatness, there is no denying their childhood videos are packed with spectacular surfing. Mixed in with the action are moments that remind the viewers these surfing phenoms are still kids.
Robinson, Igarashi and Fioravanti play rock paper scissors, gobble down copious amounts of acai, watch a kangaroo hop past, race each other in go carts and argue over who tried to push who in the water while fishing.
“We were so young that we didn't have expectations on ourselves because we were so focused on having fun,” Igarashi said. “We wanted to do good, but we cared more about our next dessert that we're going to eat or the next surf trip we're going to go on.”
Their conversations in those early videos were a jumble of good-natured jabs, which also reveal the cultural differences between them.
Together they represented four continents: Igarashi was ethnically Japanese but lived in the United States. Fioravanti was from Italy, still learning English and struggling to understand Robinson’s Australian accent. To be fair, so was Igarashi.
Those accents were a cause for plenty of jokes, though the surfers are not revealing any details.
“I always got Leo because he's Italian. You got to mess with him, he's so funny. And a couple of secret ones. Couldn't tell you, it's too gnarly,” Robinson said. “We had such fun growing up together.”
Despite the cultural differences between them, the trio quickly found a common language as well.
“Our main language was surfing,” Igarashi said. “We were all so different in our own ways, but at the same time, we were so similar. We were all connected through surfing.”
“It was simple,” Fioravanti agreed. “We love surfing. Surfing brought us together. Surfing brings so many people together and us, without surfing, we wouldn't be where we are.”
Fistfights in the water, brothers on land
Surfing is what brought the three boys together, but it was also their battleground.
Friends and accomplices in mischief on dry land, the trio were viciously competitive on the waves.
“They were like my brothers at the time. We always looked out for each other,” Igarashi said. “But then in the water, we were the first ones to try and rip each other apart. I remember, especially with Leo, we'd have heats where we'd nearly get into fistfights.”
That childhood rivalry, the surfers say, is one of the secrets behind their current success.
All three are regulars on the WSL Championship Tour, the sport's top circuit. Igarashi was the first to qualify, in 2015, finishing in the Top 3 multiple times and making history in 2021 when he took silver in the first Olympic surfing competition.
The Olympic Games are a high-stress environment for any athlete but were even more so for Igarashi who was carrying the home nation’s hopes on that cloudy day in July. The Japanese surfer credits part of the mental resilience he showed on Tsurigasaki Beach to the mind games Fioravanti would play with him growing up.
“He's made me a stronger competitor mentally just because I had to deal with all the other stuff that he would maybe be chirping in my ear and yapping at me,” Igarashi said. “I didn't want to see him do good. He didn't want to see me do good, so we were getting in each other's heads and telling each other how bad the other one's surfing is, or how ‘You look out of shape’ or ‘You should be training more’ or ‘Your board looks bad’.
“It was getting in each other's head to try and bring the other person's performance down, which sounds really, really aggressive, but looking back, I think it was as healthy as it could have gotten, a healthy rivalry."
“We had that kind of brotherhood, like iron sharpens iron," Kanoa Igarashi to Olympics.com
Even as teens, Jack Robinson and Kanoa Igarashi were already getting noticed for their surfing talent.
That healthy rivalry had benefits for Fioravanti and Robinson as well.
The Italian looked poised to be the first of the trio to qualify for the WSL Championship Tour, at age 16, but an injury delayed his arrival until the 2017 season. He is the highest-ranked European surfer in the world and is set to make his second Olympic appearance at Paris 2024.
“I can guarantee you, without them, I wouldn't be here. And for sure without me Kanoa and Jack wouldn't be here,” Fioravanti said. “We're always challenging each other. We're always improving.”
Robinson qualified for the Championship Tour in 2020 and has since won seven events, including the Tahiti Pro in 2023.
“We were always travelling together,” Robinson said. “It shaped our careers and we pushed each other a lot.”
Fiancées, wives, kids… and a trio of Olympians
The competitive nature of the three surfers has propelled them all the way to the Olympic Games. Each secured his quota via a high ranking in the Championship Tour.
While Igarashi and Fioravanti made their Olympic debuts at Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024 will be the first time Robinson will join them on the Olympic stage.
“I really didn't think about that,” Robinson said of this new milestone in their friendship. “It just gave me the tingles. I feel like we've grown up together and it's pretty crazy.”
“We've been childhood friends and we're achieving childhood goals together and we're going to keep on battling, I would say, for the next 10 years,” Leonardo Fioravanti to Olympics.com
Things have changed for the trio over the past decade. They have swapped rock-paper-scissor duels and arguments about the best movies (Transformers vs Terminator Salvation) for wedding cakes, baby strollers and couture fashion.
Robinson married Brazilian model Julia Muniz in 2020 and the couple welcomed their first child in December 2023. In the same month, Fioravanti got engaged to his long-time girlfriend and Muniz’s good friend Sophia Wilson, while Igarashi continues to zip between environmental projects and red carpet events.
But even with these adult commitments, the friends still see each other often.
“We do the World Tour together, so we're together pretty much every week. We probably see each other more than we see our families. We're still amazing friends,” Fioravanti said. “When I'm going to get married, I'm sure they'll both be at my wedding. We'll for sure always have a friendship, no matter what.”
“I surf heats with Kanoa. I hang with him,” Robinson said. “Me and Leo, we hang out more now. He's a good guy. He's getting married. I'm like, ‘Woah, we're getting old!’”
Igarashi has the same reaction of disbelief when he thinks of his now grown-up friends.
“I still look at Leo and Jack as my 13-year-old friends. I don't see them as adults,” Igarashi said. “It's really cool to see how Jack's evolved as a person. Leo's evolved as a person. We've all evolved in our own ways. It's really cool to see, not only in the water, but also on land, just what kind of people that we've become.
“I guess we're growing up and I guess the kids ended up alright because we're all on Tour and we all have great success in our own way. You couldn't have scripted it any better.”