Surfer Rides ‘Magical’ Wave with Dolphin Pod After More Than 100 Swim at Him Before Competition: 'A Good Omen' (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Griffin Colapinto tells PEOPLE exclusively about his once-in-a-lifetime ride with upwards 30 dolphins ahead of the 2025 Corona Cero Open in South Africa this July
• The pro Red Bull surfer recalled the "magical" wave shared with the dolphins, which he says likely came from the pod of around 200 before joining him in the surf
• Colapinto, who said he could see the dolphins beneath him while he rode the wave, says he views the phenomenon as a "good omen" when watching the viral footage back

Griffin Colapinto has surfed alongside the best athletes in the world over the course of his career, but no one quite compares to what recently joined him on a wave at Jeffreys Bay in Eastern Cape, South Africa: Dolphins.

Upwards of 200 dolphins, that is, popped up in the lineup during practice ahead of the Corona Cero Open's start, and a pod of approximately 30 rode alongside Colapinto for a ride the professional surfer tells PEOPLE was "as magical as it gets."

In a video shared by Red Bull Surfing, the large pod of dolphins are seen diving through an overhead wave before Colapinto drops in and races down the line alongside of them. The shadowy, dorsaled figures glide underwater while the athlete carves up the face of the wave.

"I think the wave I had was maybe the most [dolphins] there had been on a wave... there's, I don't know, 30 on that wave all coming down and they're coming right at me," Colapinto, 26, tells PEOPLE exclusively after the contest held at J-Bay, which ran from July 11 to June 20. "I just saw them coming."

Knowing that dolphins are "so smart," the athlete was confident the marine mammals wouldn't clash with him if he joined them on the wave — so without hesitation, he went for it.

"I'm like, 'Oh, these dolphins are so smart. They will know not to hit me'," he says of his thought process in that split-second moment. "So I was like, 'This would be so fun to ride with them, so I just flipped it'."

"I could see them," he says of his perspective mid-ride, noting that he was "looking right at them" while racing down the line.

Although Colapinto said the wave itself "wasn't that great," he still committed — and finished with style.

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"I just did that long floater at the end because I felt like that's what a dolphin would do," he says of the maneuver, which sees him riding on the top of the breaking wave's whitewater lip while maintaining his speed and momentum.

Instinctually, the decorated surfer — who repped Team USA in Tahiti at the 2024 Paris Olympics and finished top three at the World Surf League Championship over the course of his career — wanted to perform on the wave, but opted to take a more dolphin-chill approach instead.

"I probably would've tried to do an air or something if the dolphins weren't there, but I want to just relax on the wave with them," he shares.

The content documented from that day's ride doesn't even capture the amount of dolphins that were present alongside the Red Bull athlete, who said you could physically count 18 in a photo captured by photographer Pierre Tostee but there were "probably 30 or 40" out of the frame.

Meanwhile, Colapinto — who said he's surfed with dolphins in the past, but nothing compared to what he experienced at J-Bay — noted that there were hundreds of finned friends in the water with him and the other surfers for two to three days straight.

"They would ride the wave and then there would be just more dolphins coming down the line," he recalls. "I don't know if they were riding the wave, going back out and then riding them again. But there must've been a pod of 100 or 200 dolphins that just kept just riding waves."

He adds, "There were actually a bunch of other surfers that rode with the dolphins as well."

For Colapinto, specifically, he says he "for sure" has a newfound appreciation for J-Bay and the ocean in general after having that unique experience with the dolphins.

"It's crazy. The dolphins, they're not scared of humans at all," he tells PEOPLE. "They come right up to you and right under you. It's just like, 'Whoa, we're a part of something crazy here'."

He adds, "Magical as it gets."

When watching the clip of himself back, Colapinto views it as a sign.

"I just think about that being special, a good omen almost," he says, doubling down, "Yeah, it's a good omen for me."

Colapinto previously opened up to PEOPLE in July 2024 before making his Team USA debut at the Paris Summer Games. He spoke about the remarkable waves at Teahupoʻo, the infamous surf break in Tahiti that served as the Olympic surf venue last year.

Colapinto described the French Polynesian spot located off Tahiti's southwestern coast as "one of the most dangerous, rewarding waves in the world."

Simply put, he told PEOPLE: "You could either die out there or you could have the best ride of your life."

Read the original article on People