Watch: Biggest Air Ever Boosted in a Wave Pool?

Originally posted on SURFER | By Dashel Pierson | Last updated Mar 5, 2025 12:55 PM ET

Of all the attractive factors of wave pools – including the obvious, i.e. bringing surfing to the non-surfing masses, eliminating the variability factor with on-demand, manmade waves, etc. – there’s the repetition. The same wave, lip, tube, ramp…over and over, allowing for leaps in progression.

Wave pools are, in that sense, like a skatepark.

And so, it might make sense that skateboarders with a penchant towards surf craft would flourish in the pool. Skateboarders like Brazilian Olympic silver medalist Pedro Barros. Below, Barros puts his skating background to good use at the new Sao Paulo Surf Club, boosting what very well may be one of, if not the, biggest airs ever boosted in a tank. Check it out; you be the judge.

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Barros blasts off on what they’re aptly calling the McFly section. He literally ollies off the lip, kicking back on the tail, then sliding his front foot forward on the nose to balance it out. He does a simple indy grab, but what he lacks in technicality, he makes up for in altitude. Serious hang time. If that wave is about four-feet high, then that air has got to be somewhere around six-feet…or more.

It's not the first time we’ve seen Barros in the pool, either. A little while back, he and Miggy Pupo recently had a session at another Brazilian pool powered by PerfectSwell, Boa Vista Village. There, amidst seeing the progression possibilities of wave pools firsthand, Barros noted:

“This is insane being here. I think this is the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a skatepark. It’s just crazy to go on and on, and keep trying something you’ve been working on. Every section is just perfect. I feel like this is the closest it gets to surfboarding [sic] in a surf park…or skatepark.”

As for the Sao Paulo Surf Club, we recently saw Italo Ferreira also christen the new pool with a lofty superman air. Keep an eye on this tank. More big things, undoubtedly, coming soon.

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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