Pierre Rollet

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Big Wave Rider

When he answers our phone call, Pierre Rollet is on the road to Galicia, Spain, to join the famous and experienced Basque big-wave rider, Asier Muniain. Cyclone Lorenzo is raging off the coast. Chaos! Three days later, we called Pierre back.
- " So ?"
- "We didn't surf, but spent more than 9h roving the water on a jet-ski to spot potential waves. We were in the rain and wind and even had on our waxed jackets over our navigation suits. It was an epic hunt, a real adventure."

An adventure that now mobilizes all the energy of the young, professional French big-wave surfer born in Bayonne in 1994. On Pierre Rollet’s palmares, the notable victory of the 2019 Punta Galea Challenge, a prestigious big-surf competition that traditionally takes place at the entrance to the port of Bilbao, Spain, in at least six-meter swells. Double glory for the Angloy surfer, to be invited to the competition and to win it too!

Before big waves became an addictive attraction to his existence, Pierre Rollet was an avid, competitive surfer. Trained at Pôle France (French sport training center) and a medalist at the European Championships, he even paid his own registration fees for the European Pro Junior events to be extra motivated to do well there! But another challenge hits him in the gut, big waves. The advantage of learning through Pôle France is you come out with a strong surfing foundation. A good bottom-turn, the right line... And in big-wave surfing, such skills matter a lot, particularly when committing to catch a wave. Pierre is a powerful surfer, his small but muscular physique makes for a useful and solid footing in big surf. Initially assisted by another big-wave surfer from Angloy, Stéphane Iralour, the young athlete learned the tow-in ropes offshore of the Anglet surf spots before venturing to Belharra and getting a taste for the infinite and vertiginous slope of the breaking Basque surf.

“But another wave obsesses him, Nazaré in Portugal, especially since big-wave surfing with a paddle is once again the signature of big-surf nobility. “

"I couldn’t stop bugging Stéphane about us going there. But I was young, and I understand now that it meant a lot of responsibility for him. “

The two friends finally made the trip. Attempting to paddle out immunized them. For Pierre Rollet, Nazaré became a personal challenge. But the surfer was methodical in his approach. "I learned to really observe attentively from the sidelines for hours. I even paid a jet ski driver to go around the spot without surfing, just to understand how the waves work. "

In winter 2018-2019, Pierre Rollet, after several big-wave trips to Nazaré, spent an entire month surfing all the waves, from huge to medium, which earned him a photo in the shortlist for the XXL Awards and brought him into the international spotlight. Like others, he traveled to Mavericks in California. But here, again, he watched attentively and only caught one wave during his first session, obviously not alone in the water! An attitude that paid off in the coming days.

Big-wave surfing is a continuous lesson of humility while being a necessity of the sport. Pierre Rollet polished his balance game, solidifying his motivation to discover new waves at sea.

A recent father of a little boy, the surfer runs a surf camp with his wife in Seignosse, where they teach his passion for surfing six months of the year. The rest of the time, he trains physically and pays close attention to storms in the Atlantic. Not the kind to grab a plane to surf a big swell on the other side of the world, Peter’s voice mounts at the thought of all the shallow waves that pepper Europe’s Atlantic coast. Not to mention a huge pipeline in Nazaré (or elsewhere) that he intends to catch one day with his gun. The wave of a lifetime!

Text of Gibus de Soultrait. Photos Rafa Riancho, Greg Rabejac.

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