By Erika Scafuro

 
All of us have seen the video in which Jeremy Flores being cheered on and carried by Kelly Slater and Leonardo Fioravanti after his session during WSL Men’s Championship Tour in Mexico, held last August.

 

 

At the age of 33 Flores took the decision to end an important chapter of his life, after fiveteen years, as a professional surfer: he gave up with the competitions on the WSL Championship Tour. We hear more and more about the difficulty of keeping up with the competition life: steady travel, time away from loved ones, pressure and stress. There are athletes who can’t stop competing, while others feel the need to stop when other priorities take over.
Flores has made his dream true when he became a pro surfer. As an athlete, Flores’ career has seen a lot of epic moments, let’s look back at them together.
Born and grew up in the paradisiacal Reunion Island, France, Flores started surfing when is three years old. He is just a kid when starts traveling with his family to catch the best waves in Australia, Europe and Hawaii. In 2007, at the age of 18, he joined Championship Tour and his talent began to be known worldwide.
Among the greatest European surfers, Flores took Championship Tour victory in 2010 and 2017 at the Billabong Pipe Masters, in 2015 at the Billabong Pro Tahiti and he was hailed as the winner in 2019 in Hossegor at the Quiksilver Pro France.

 

 

 

This event for Flores represented a long awaited dream, the victory of this title in his homeland. You have to be very determined to make your wishes come true and Flores did, as he wrote in an Instagram post: “The idea of making a living while surfing was a wild dream. The thing that motivated me the most was the people saying ‘you can’t’. Plenty of people trying to bring you down. My whole career I needed to hear this. Most people need to hear how good they are to find confidence to be successful. For me, what always got me fired up, was everyone who didn’t believe in me. Strange right? Still today I thank the haters for pushing me to be at my best. Never stop believing in your dream, get out there PROVE them wrong”.
Flores’s professional surfing career peaked with his proud participation in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, in which surfing saw its first entry; he represented his country in Team France.
A man’s priorities change and so the time has come for Flores to devote it to his personal world, to devote time to his beloved family, to his role of father and new projects…a new chapter of his life.