Words: Sydney Pizza // Photos: Jeremy Whitney & Brandon Sears
It was an action packed and historic weekend down here in Mexico for Team Zap! Checking in from a team favorite location, the legendary Cabo San Lucas in Baja Sur, Mexico! It was a beautiful and sunny weekend with weather in the mid to upper 80’s with a heavy and classic six-foot shore break blessing us at Land’s End, Lover’s Beach. We were here for the first stop for both the men and women on the 2026 United Skim Tour. In attendance this weekend are team riders Gerardo and Yahir Valencia, Leo Freitas, Elian Juarez, Sydney Pizza, and Oliver Brambila. After a lay day on Friday, we got the green light for an epic weekend, so the team geared up and got ready to rip!
Starting Saturday off with the Pro Men the entire team crushed it, in some pretty high tide conditions, with the sider struggling to connect, the boys were onto heavy on shore barrels, with late bottom turns to make the tricky conditions work. Gerardo, throwing massive, full-rotation and re-entry airs, dominated his heat with ease, making funding shade in the Cabo sun easy, our team vet was looking poised and a strong contender early in the weekend. Oliver, a young gun on the team, broke no sweat making it through the first round also finding his share of shade. Leo and Elian paired up in the same heat, both ripped and found their own sections of the beach, Leo advancing and Elian getting knocked out with an unlucky turn of priority. Last but certainly not least, in the last heat of round one Yahir made Cabo look easy with loads of style and pulling into some of the bigger barrels of the day, with 360s and 3-shuvs on the way out!
Right after that the Pro Women had their moment of glory only running one round on Saturday, our lone representative, Sydney Pizza did well with a solid backhand turn filled with style advanced onto finals day and has secured a podium spot at the first stop of the 2026 UST tour!
Back into Pro Men, round two hit hard, with the tide dropping out a little more, and the wind picking up, finding the cleanest and most stand out waves were a little harder to come by. In the last three heats of round two Yahir, Gerardo and Leo all advanced into finals day for round three. Yahir found himself a very poised high score of 8.13, the highest score of the day. While Gerardo and Leo stuck to their guns with 360s out to the wave, and driving barrels, team Zap was looking keen for Sunday!
An 8am start got the finals day going with similar conditions to Saturday just a bit bigger with longer lulls in between sets. The boys turned it on in round three, all advancing into Quarterfinals, where we saw Yahir go head-to-head with Brazilian Daniel Azevedo, Leo Freitas with new pro Colton Ettwein, and Gerardo with Timmy Gamboa, all stacked heats the boys swept the round with far out slides, 360s out and driving overhead barrels that got the crowd up and on their feet!
To give the boys a break the Pro Women took to the stage, as Sydney Pizza held her own in the Semifinal with some tricky conditions against Chabe White. Her backhand turns and style were standout but not quite enough to make it to the final. Overall she did great earning herself a 4th place finish for the weekend and a solid start to her 2026 UST Campaign!
Gerardo, Yahir and Leo all making it to the Semifinals, this is where we saw the last of Yahir due to an on going quad injury that prevented him for expressing his full capacity this weekend, he still ripped and earned himself a 3rd place finish, and a strong start to the UST season, all without further injuring himself, which is a plus! The Gerardo and Leo head to head was one for the memory roll as it was back and forth the whole heat both exhibiting their own styles and finesse to find the best barrels and combos that worked for them. In the last 15 seconds of the heat Gerardo found an almost overhead stand-up barrel that he drove all the way up the beach, turning the heat and taking him to the final back-to-back years! Leo had earned himself a hard-fought 4th place finish for the weekend, one of his top UST performances of his career way to go Leo!
Moving into the final Gerardo was ready to face off with Chad Wadsworth, and had the eye of the tiger, not to be messed with. Just in time, as the sider started pushing and the heat kicked off! It was an intense battle with both riders swapping position after every wave, making it that much better, Gerardo found himself more overhead, and driving barrels. Relying on pure size of wave, style and finesse Gerry took to the air for massive re-entry attempts and long slide outs to even bigger wraps helping him get that much closer to the win! It was a close heat and came down to the final seconds as both riders took the last waves that they could to count, our Gerardo Valencia came out on top as THE Rey De Lover’s 2026, which was not only his first win at Lover’s, but his first UST contest win! A huge accomplishment for Gerry that he could not believe and said nothing more than thank you and hard work pays off in a post heat interview!
We are super proud of the team for ripping this weekend! See you all in Nokomis!
For full results, click here: https://liveheats.es/events/501119
