Page 136 - PROTAGONIST 121

Maya Gabeira walking on a beach at Rio de Janeiro (2009).
Photo: Carlos Serrao / Red Bull Content Pool

creasingly big and despite herself, Maya finds her- envelope and discovering herself. She, too, has fears
self debunking the myth that only men can face and doubts about the future: “Will I find a sponsor
the so-called big waves, the most challenging ones. for next year? Will I manage to reaffirm myself?” But
When she risked drowning at Nazaré in 2013, Laird these questions disappear when she’s on a surfboard.
Hamilton, a surfing icon, criticized her, saying she There are only certainties and exclamation points
didn’t have the skill to come out alive from a match on the surfboard and if the moment that precedes a
with that sea. Maya continues to look at that sea, and record is one of total solitude, Maya knows she can
after she was released from the hospital in Los An- count on a team that supports her in every aspect of
geles, where she was admitted for a broken ankle, as her sporting life, starting with her colleague Carlos
well, she started preparing. Not to get revenge, but to Burle, who saved her life on a jet ski in Nazaré. It isn’t
regain a line with herself and her own emotions. Two easy to figure out Maya Gabeira. Is it worth the risk
years later, in 2015, she was back in Nazaré, and in to ride a twenty-meter-high wave? Everything around
2018 she waited three and a half hours for the right us, prudence, hindsight, says no, we should stay qui-
wave. That wave was over 20.7 meters (68 feet) high etly at home in the framework of our normality. But as
and it crowned her as the best female surfer of all she looks at the sea and sees something we can’t even
time. How did she react? She said that “records exist begin to glimpse, Maya Gabeira teaches us something
for both men and women, without distinction.” Non- else: that it’s right to ask questions that have never
chalantly, self-confidently, with no vindictiveness been asked before, that it’s right to raise the bar high-
toward those who had unsuccessfully tried to knock er than it’s ever been raised before. Maybe you can’t
her off her surfboard. answer the questions, maybe you can’t jump over the
What does Maya Gabeira do today? She’s hunt- bar. But everything that lies between thinking about
ing. For another sea, for another wave, for encoun- doing something and actually trying to do it... that is
ters with the unknown, which means pushing the the meaning of life itself.

134 Portrait Protagonist