Portuguese surfer Erica Máximo has apologized for her attitude yesterday in the series in which she interfered with Australian surfer Willow Hardy: “I recognize that it was a wrong attitude,” she says in a video posted on her Instagram.

In this he adds that he apologizes to the Australians, to the organization, to the ISA and to the entire surfing community because he has already received several messages from all over the world. He said that he has already apologized to his team and his federation.

“I interfered in a very unsportsmanlike manner. It was not my objective, my objective was to help my team, but I recognize that it was the wrong attitude,” she said, visibly moved.

She added: “I wanted to make this video to show that I am very sorry for my attitude and to serve as an example for other young athletes and others with experience that these situations cannot happen even if they have a good outcome, they cannot happen, it is not about sports, it has nothing to do with sport.”

She concluded by saying: “I am very sorry and obviously this will never happen again.”

With 40 seconds left in her repechage heat yesterday, Portugal's Erica Maximo stepped into Australia's Willow Hardy's wave and tried to block her path. She did this because she wanted to prevent her from scoring 2,4 points as her teammate, another Portuguese, Maria Salgado, was threatening her second place.

The incident ended up transcending the competition and the Portuguese federation received a fine of 7000 dollars in addition to the disqualification of Erica, whose points will not be counted towards the final team ranking.

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A post shared by Erica Máximo🏄‍♀️ (@erica_maximo_surf)