Leilani McGonagle’s success secrets: Confidence and double dinners
From Friday, all of the heats are expected to be held at La Bocana instead of El Sunzal where most of the men’s repechage heats have taken place so far.
This is good news for Morais. La Bocana is one of his favourite beach breaks and plays up to his strengths as a surfer.
“There’s just a lot more opportunity. The wave is a lot more powerful. It comes at you whereas here (in El Sunzal) it’s a little fat and it takes a lot to paddle out,” Morais said. “You need to rush everything a little bit out here. So definitely, having more opportunity, it helps a lot.”
Costa Rica’s Leilani McGonagle surfed three repechage rounds at La Bocana on Thursday, saving her best for the last heat of the day where she scored 14.93 points to finish ahead of Brazil’s Laura Raupp.
“It was a long day. Three heats is a lot of heats, especially in this heat and at this level,” McGonagle told Olympics.com. “I was just really excited to be able to do my best heat at the end of the day because it gives me more confidence into tomorrow.”
Like Morais and Silveira, McGonagle has been trying to make the most of being in the repechage. On Wednesday she even got the third highest-scoring wave of the competition thus far, an 8.33, on a move she has been working to perfect in training.
“I feel like I have a little bit more confidence after repechage. I was very frustrated and had some tricky heats where the ocean just didn’t go my way,” she said. “So having probably one of the best performances yesterday – I pulled a move that I’d been working on for a long time in my practices – that felt really good and it just told me, ‘OK, everything happens for a reason and this is probably yours so just keep building that confidence’.”
Beyond the growing confidence, McGonagle noted two more secrets to her success: Rest, and ample meals.
“It’s been a long day. I’ll probably go home and shower and eat a lot of food,” the surfer said of her recovery plan. “Yesterday I ate two dinners, so maybe that’s the go-to today too.”