Some of the biggest names in surfing are heading to Peniche this week, where a record five Portuguese competitors will take on the world’s best at the MEO Rip Curl Pro Portugal.
By , in News, Sport · 14 Oct 2026, 17:03 · 0 Comments
The event at Supertubos Beach begins its competition window on 16 October, bringing the World Surf League’s Championship Tour back to one of Portugal’s best-known surfing destinations.
For Portuguese surfing, this year’s event is particularly significant.
Yolanda Hopkins, Francisca Veselko and Teresa Bonvalot will compete in the women’s competition, while Frederico Morais and Guilherme Ribeiro represent Portugal in the men’s event.
It’s the largest Portuguese contingent ever to compete at the Peniche event.
Hopkins arrives ranked 14th in the world in her first season on the Championship Tour. Veselko has received a wildcard entry, while Bonvalot, currently third in the Challenger Series rankings, joins the competition as a replacement for injured Australian Isabella Nichols.
Morais and Ribeiro have also secured wildcard places.
They’ll be competing alongside some familiar international names, including reigning world champion Yago Dora, Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo and Ítalo Ferreira.
On the women’s side, five-time world champion Carissa Moore, Molly Picklum and Caroline Marks are among those expected to compete.
Portugal’s growing place in world surfing
Peniche is the final stop in a series of three major international surfing competitions hosted in Portugal over recent weeks.
The run began in Matosinhos in September, followed by the EDP Ericeira Pro earlier this month.
According to Francisco Spínola, the World Surf League’s director-general for Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the events have encouraged many of the world’s leading surfers to use Portugal as a base during the autumn season.
And with good reason. Portugal’s Atlantic coastline offers some of its most favourable surfing conditions at this time of year, while events such as Peniche continue to attract international attention.
The competition could also prove important in deciding this year’s world titles, with only two Championship Tour events remaining after Portugal.
For the five Portuguese surfers, however, there’s an added incentive: the chance to compete against the world’s best in front of a home crowd.
Kam Heskin is an American writer, journalist, presenter, and actress who spent 25 years in Los Angeles building an extensive career in front of the camera. Her credits include Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can, playing the female lead, Paige Morgan, in three films in The Prince & Me franchise, and major roles in the NBC daytime dramas Sunset Beach and Passions. She has also appeared in various television series including Charmed, Angel, and CSI: NY.
A graduate in Communications and Political Science, Kam has always had a parallel interest in writing and storytelling. In Los Angeles, she contributed to luxury fashion and lifestyle magazine Genlux. Since moving to Portugal in 2022, she has written for Wherever magazine, where she was a columnist and social editor, creating and running Seen in the Algarve, the magazine’s social diary, for three years.
Today, Kam writes and creates video content for The Portugal News and also presents its online weather reports. Her work draws on decades of on-camera experience, a journalist’s curiosity and the perspective of an American building a life in Portugal. Away from the camera and keyboard, she can usually be found playing padel, exploring the Algarve or spending time with her two sons.
Kam Heskin
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