Portuguese surfer Teresa Bonvalot on her big plans and making history 

Polished but easy-going. Teresa Bonvalot's personality reflects her surfing style.

But what you don’t see from the outside is the hunger and determination within the Portuguese surfer. She’s the first to admit, she likes to win.

“I just want to do my maximum because I'm super competitive,” she tells Olympics.com. "I love competition."

The 23-year-old is a familiar and friendly face on the surfing scene. In 2014, as a 15-year-old, she won her first national title and retained it the following year.

Bonvalot went on to become a two-time European junior surfing champion, so it’s fair to say she had a decent amount of early success. With those achievements also came pressure and expectation, but Bonvalot believes seems to not only coped but matured through the process.

"I started competing from a really young age and throughout a career, you always have more downs than highs. You always lose way more than you win, and I guess it's the way that you accept all the processes and accept that it’s (success) not a straightaway thing.

"It's like a marathon that never ends so you have to stick to the things that you actually love. For me, it's surfing, for me, it's competing, so that's why I'm in this area. And I think from that you just like keep pushing.

Teresa Bonvalot: on making history

Portugal may have a rich surfing history, but no woman has as yet qualified for the World Surf League (WSL) elite Championship Tour (CT).

Bonvalot wants to be the first:

"Since I started surfing, I had the goal of qualifying for the CT and being a world champion one day. Back then it was a dream. Nowadays it's a goal of mine."

2022 has been a fruitful year for her. By July, she had already won four events including a first inaugural WSL Challenger series success at the Sydney Surf Pro.

"I would say it’s been non-stop, but my year is going pretty well," she said. "Obviously, there are always ups and downs, but I accomplished for the first time the win from a Challenger Series, which was a huge deal for me. I won several QS (qualifying series) in Europe as well."

Bonvalot has something of a holistic view towards her sport and the ocean. She’s ambitious, and driven, but respects the journey she is travelling on.

"This is a cycle, like a wave. That’s the mindset that I try to have every time I have low moments, even every time that I have high moments because. The waves, they come; they don't go. The good thing about surfing, too and that's why I love so much the ocean and all of it."

Her approach seems to have served her well so far.

"I'd say that I have to think that it's my job. Because for pretty much 95 per cent of the time, it's just me doing something that I love. A sport. It could be something else, but it's surfing, and I chose surfing.

"I don't think I’ve ever had a vacation or time off that I never brought my board with me. It doesn't happen."

Bonvalot: Following in the footsteps of her idols

Bonvalot has a reputation for hard work and being committed to her training. It’s a trait that naturally draws parallels with Portugal’s biggest global sports star, Cristiano Ronaldo who is renowned for his dedication on and off the pitch.

"For me, coming from Portugal, we have a role model, the '7', Cristiano. I think he shows you that if you come from nothing and you can reach anything if you focus if you have goals and if you have that mindset of wanting more. He has done so, so much and he keeps going and keeps pushing."

It’s no wonder she is so laser-focused.

Well before she turned professional, she had success in her sights, and there’s no better example of that in surfing than 11-time world champion, Kelly Slater.

"In surfing, we have Kelly. He is amazing. I remember in my first interview in Portugal that I said I wanted to be Kelly Slater in the female version," Bonvalot said.

Emulating Slater and Ronaldo is a lofty ambition but she’s on the right track and already one of Portugal’s best-ever surfers.

Bonvalot: Olympic dreams

Tokyo 2020 was where surfing made its Olympic debut. It’s also where Bonvalot realised one of her dreams of becoming an Olympian, although she admits that goal came long after her ambitions to become a world champion.

"For us surfers, it was kind of unreal, like questioning, 'How will it be? What will the feeling be?' I didn’t have someone to talk to about it because it was the first time."

The Games certainly made an impression on her.

"Being in the Olympic Village was like, 'Oh my God!' I was shaking all the time. You see a lot of great athletes and you're like, 'How do they train? What do they do? What do they eat?'

"Everything was so precise and there was so much detail. I think for us and me especially, I was like, 'Woah, this is another level,' and I want to be there, and I want to be more like them.

"Even though we were in the pandemic, it was probably the best experience that I have had in my whole career and the best days I’ve ever had even though I wanted to do better in competition. It was some tough conditions, but that's the ocean. That's the sport that we chose."

It's clear she’s been bitten by the Olympic bug.

"It was a lifetime dream and I want to accomplish more, and I want to qualify for the next one. I think it's going to be super-interesting and I'm super excited to see what's going to happen in the next few years."

Excitement is already building for surfing’s second Olympic appearance because of the venue chosen for Paris 2024. As far as waves go, Teahupo’o in Tahiti is as a spectator and iconic as you can get.

The powerful barreling wave is located on the southwestern coast of Tahiti, an Island in French Polynesia in the South Pacific Ocean.

In May this year, Bonvalot went to Teahupo’o to get a taste for the famous wave nicknamed ‘Chopes’, but it was more than just learning about the wave.

"It was so different to what we are accustomed to. They have a whole different kind of respect and different culture. We felt so much love and respect from everyone. People getting in the water were saying hi and shaking hands with everyone and we were doing the same.

"It made everything even better because we out there in the line-up trying to share the best waves with everyone and showing the stoke that we have and expressing the stoke from them, catching waves, them doing the best tube that they can."

The wave itself was another story all together. Because Bonvalot is a goofy footer, she is better suited to catching left-breaking waves. Teahupo’o does exactly that.

“The wave was freaking awesome. I'm a goofy and I love lefts and it's the best tube that we can ask for. There were a lot of challenges because you have to have a lot of respect. It's not an easy wave. And from the end of the trip, I was really happy with the little accomplishments that I did throughout the stay, the trip. I'm super excited, Bonvalot says."

It’s no surprise then that Paris 2024 is at the front of her mind, and she’s got a clear plan to get there.

"My dream, my goal is to qualify for Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games. Be there for the second time, try to take everything that I tried to do in the first one.

"I try to put myself in a position that I'm more comfortable and I'm more prepared to fight if I qualify. So, I can fight for that gold or for a good result. I want to be better, and I think the best thing is to feel prepared for whatever comes, you must put practice and put in the effort to be better in bad conditions or better in other conditions because we have contests like that. And I think that’s surfing."

In the meantime, she’s constantly working to be a better version of the person she was the day before, focusing on what she can do, rather than what she cannot.

"I try to be more complete in my surfing and control the things that I can control. I cannot control other people. I cannot control the waves. I can only control what I do on the waves, what I do every day and my training. That's something that I learned since I started with sports psychology.

"Just trying to focus on the things that I can control and give my all every time so that I’ll never regret anything." - Teresa Bonvalot