In his short life, but not so short career, Malakai Martinez has scored a few respectable results, podiums and victories in NSSA championships in the United States and at the national level, great performances in QSs and luxury segments in videos on social networks.

If you add to all that a podium three days ago in the classic WSL pro junior event held at Pipe, and the fact that the waves were epic for that championship, we are talking about a pretty complete resume for a 17-year-old.

The future looks good for the surfer from Tamarindo, who, however, points to the lack of support as a limitation to being able to reach more events.

How do you feel about fourth place?
I'm super happy with fourth place. I've been training a lot at home. I was visualizing winning the tournament. Coming here and seeing the conditions being so good and the level of competition being so high. Coming in fourth place means I'm at the same level as a lot of the surfers. That makes me super happy. Fourth place is pretty big for me.

Pipe seems to have been great, please describe the conditions.
It was super good during the tournament, the first day the conditions were pretty great, very good barrels all day. There were a couple of waves on the second reef that were scary, but there were some amazing barrels, all the surfers were surfing really well. Barron Mamiya got some great barrels, Kainehe Hunt another Hawaiian got some great barrels. I was able to get a couple of eights, I was able to pass a couple of my heats and I'm really happy about that.

How did those high marks you had in the first series come about?
I had two heats where I had an eight and an eight and a half, in another I had an eight and a seven and a half. The heats really started off fast, I started off hitting an eight, I came back in and hit an eight and a half, the conditions were so good and I was having so much fun, the waves kept coming in and I kept hitting scores, in the heats I had some really tough surfers so I knew I had to hit good scores.

Describe step by step the best wave of the event:
The best wave of the event, my personal favourite, was one of the tubes that I didn't take out, I have the video. It was at the end of the heat, I was winning, there were a few seconds left and I paddled super hard, I went in, did a bottom turn and got into the tube with my hands open at the end, everyone on the beach applauding and whistling, the truth is that that was the one I liked the most.

What happened in the final that you couldn't find the waves from the previous series?
There weren't many waves, the wind had already come in and it was really bad and I waited for about seven minutes without catching any waves. I kept pushing really deep because I didn't want to let them take me on the inside, which is very important at the beginning of the heat. So I went in really deep and when the first set came in, we were all a little deep except for the little guy who won. He was further away than us and was able to catch the wave more at the elbow. Since it was a big wave, it became double, it became really good and he spat out. The second one, the other Hawaiian Barron Mamiya, who came in second, I was paddling out and when I looked back he went in on the inside and I didn't see him. When I turned around, he was already there. That's how the competition works, so I couldn't catch that wave. That was it because there weren't many waves coming in the rest of the heat.

One by one all the waves of Malakai in the Pipe Pro Junior. Video: @clemo3000

Who did you see that caught your eye at the tournament?
Everyone was surfing super well, the Hawaiians are amazing like Finn McGill, Barron Mamiya, Kainehe Hunt who was surfing amazing. Makana Pang, the winner of the event, everyone was surfing really well, there was a really high level in that tournament. I had some pretty tough heats with Finn McGill and with Barron Mamiya's crazy perfect ten, they, the Hawaiians were surfing really well.

How is your year going?
I don't know, I really need to find sponsors to get to other tournaments because it's really hard for me to pay for everything, and for my parents too, so I'm trying to get enough support. Maybe go to Indonesia and then maybe do the US Open, which is a pretty big tournament too.