Olympics-Gold medal boosts pandemic-hit surf paradise in Brazil

FILE PHOTO: Brazilian surfer Italo Ferreira, gold medalist at Tokyo 2020 Olympics, practices at Point Secret beach in his hometown Baia Formosa, in Rio Grande do Norte state, Brazil, July 30, 2021. REUTERS/Rodolfo Buhrer

BAIA FORMOSA, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil’s gold medal performance in surfing did not just boost the country’s medal tally in Tokyo, it also gave a fillip to business in the small town where champion Italo Ferreira began his athletic career.

Ferreira, who won the first ever Olympic gold in the surfing discipline last week, left Japan and headed straight to Baia Formosa, the small town on Brazil’s northeastern coast where he was born and grew up.