Maya Gabeira overcame sexism, entered the Guinness Book and fights anxiety

Surfer Maya Gabeira experienced a curious situation in October 2020. After descending a 22.4-meter-high mountain of water (think of a six-story building), in Nazaré, Portugal, she achieved a feat. She broke her own record, achieved eight months earlier, and was recognized, twice in a row, as the greatest big wave surfer on the planet.

But the best comes now: Maya not only broke a record that was already hers, but also glided over the biggest of all waves surfed in that year 2020, between men and women. The feat was confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records. Undisputed.

Quite a recognition for those who had to fight through a petition to have their first record recognized by the same Guinness — in 2018, the mark was 20.7 meters and there was no female category. Maya was out of the running, but imagine if she was going to leave it at that.

She created a movement on the networks that gathered more than 20,000 signatures, and managed to make the guide accept the reality that was imposed: it was high time for women to have their own ranking. It is for these and other reasons that, on this women’s day, Maya deserves all the celebrations.

In addition to three Guinness citations, she also released her first book (there’s another one coming), built her own brand, made her way around the world. With so many accomplishments, anyone who thinks that the daughter of stylist and fashion designer Yamê Reis and journalist and commentator Fernando Gabeira poses as a fearless woman is wrong. It’s people like us. Suffer from anxiety, for example. Who never?

“Several moments have already been harmed by my anxiety. It is a challenge to deal with the problem in a high-risk sport, without a regulated routine. The lack of stability makes it difficult”, says Maya, who has no problem saying that she is still being monitored psychiatric. It’s part.

This courage to talk about her pains and weaknesses, imperceptible to the naked eye, led her to speak on the mental health panel at a UN event on Sustainable Development, in October 2022. With a life full of challenges and new beginnings —it’s hard not to remember the accident that almost took her life, in the same Nazaré, in 2013, when she was submerged for 10 minutes— Maya decided to tell her story.

She has lived outside of Rio de Janeiro since she was 17, and spoke with F5 from Nazaré, in Portugal, where he has lived for a few years. He got excited when talking about the autobiography “Beyond the Board”, a children’s book that is being edited and will be released in early 2024. But the character can already be read in the children’s book “Maya and The Beast” (Maya e a Fera, in free translation), in which the little surfer faces a beast: the giant wave, which, for her, is the biggest of friends.

The writing influenced by her father also paved the way for her life as an entrepreneur and activist. Maya launched her own sunscreen, free of animal ingredients and biodegradable, had a Barbie doll created in her honor and was named a UNESCO ambassador for the preservation of the oceans. Maya doesn’t stop and wants to be an example for other women. “I think that, above all, being a woman is being human. We have a lot more in common than we sometimes realize.”