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| Edoardo Papa Physical 100 Italy: Where Is the Professional Surfer Now? |
Edoardo Papa has gone from learning to surf alongside his father in Italy to becoming one of the country’s leading professional surfers, and now the 25-year-old athlete is appearing on Netflix’s Physical 100: Italy, where he is swapping ocean swells for a very different kind of physical test. While surfing is clearly his natural habitat, Papa is keen to show that his fitness, endurance and competitive instincts are not things he conveniently leaves on the beach. With €100,000 and plenty of pride at stake, he has plenty to prove — and apparently, getting knocked about by waves was not enough of a challenge.
Edoardo Papa was born on May 5, 2001, in Pescara, Italy, to professional windsurfer Andrea Papa and his partner. His relationship with the sea began less as a carefully planned sporting career and more as a way of spending time with his father. That family connection eventually became something much bigger.
After Andrea noticed how comfortable his son was around the water, he took Edoardo to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands for his first experience of the open ocean. It was there that the young surfer properly fell for the sport, the board and the strange but compelling philosophy that seems to come with chasing waves for a living.
That first trip proved to be a turning point. Edoardo became increasingly serious about surfing and began spending almost every spare moment in the water, gradually learning how to deal with more demanding conditions while developing the confidence required to compete. Having a professional windsurfer for a father certainly did not hurt, either. Andrea became his first coach and remained in that role until Edoardo was 16, giving him an early education not just in technique but also in what it actually means to build a life around sport.
Their father-and-son relationship appears to have been particularly important to Edoardo's development. He has credited Andrea with helping him understand the discipline and mentality behind becoming a professional athlete, while also describing their sporting journey as something they experienced together.
There is a slightly wholesome twist to the story: the person who first took him into the ocean eventually became the person responsible for telling him how to ride it properly. Not exactly the worst coaching arrangement when your dad already understands the water.
By the age of 15, Edoardo Papa was already pursuing surfing professionally, and his progress soon began attracting attention beyond his home region. In 2016, he was selected for both the Junior National Team for the World Championship in Japan and the Senior National Team for the World Championship in France.
The following year, he entered the Wind Surfing League, competing in two events and four heats and earning an international ranking of 970. For someone still juggling school with competitive sport, it was a respectable starting point.
His ranking improved again in 2018, when he reached 719th internationally after taking part in three events and five heats. His schedule was still restricted by school, but that limitation disappeared after graduation. Edoardo then committed himself more fully to travelling and competing, visiting surfing destinations including Spain, France, Portugal, Indonesia, the Maldives and Australia.
The lifestyle was demanding, but it also offered exactly the kind of variety that appears to suit him: different coastlines, different waves and, presumably, plenty of opportunities to discover that the ocean has an impressive number of ways to humble you.
The results continued to move in the right direction. Edoardo finished the 2019 season ranked 636th and was part of the Italian National Team that won the European Team Championship. His development then accelerated, with 2021 marking another major step as he broke into the world's top 120, reaching 119th place.
Since then, he has spent much of the past five years competing around the 50s and 60s in the international rankings, establishing himself as a serious name in competitive surfing rather than simply another athlete with an Instagram-friendly relationship with the beach.
His latest progress is arguably the most impressive part of the story. According to the material available, Edoardo is currently sitting at 27th in the international surfing rankings for the 2026/2027 season, despite that campaign still being under way. That position puts him firmly among the sport's leading competitors and suggests his years of travelling, training and repeatedly throwing himself into difficult conditions are beginning to pay off in a substantial way.
Travel remains a major part of Edoardo's professional life. In 2026 alone, he has made trips to the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia, Morocco, France, England and Spain, combining competition with the chance to experience different environments and cultures. For many people, that itinerary would qualify as several dream holidays stitched together. For Papa, it is effectively the office — except his office occasionally consists of a moving wall of water.
The 25-year-old has also broadened his training away from surfing. He has recently incorporated HYROX and cycling into his routine, adding more variety to a programme designed to keep him physically prepared for whatever competition throws at him.
His ambition is to continue surfing for as long as possible, so maintaining his overall fitness has become an important part of the bigger picture. He is also a dog dad, which means that somewhere between international competitions, training sessions and ocean travel, he apparently still has time for the responsibilities of being the world's most geographically mobile pet owner.
At present, Papa remains focused on training and spending as much time in the water as possible as he prepares for future competitions. His immediate goal is refreshingly simple: fall less and produce bigger, sharper manoeuvres. It is a wonderfully honest target for a professional surfer. There is no elaborate corporate mission statement here, just the eternal athlete's desire to stop falling over and look considerably better while doing something difficult.
What makes Edoardo's journey particularly interesting is that his appearance on Physical 100: Italy is not really about discovering whether he is athletic. The evidence for that has been accumulating for years. Instead, the Netflix series gives viewers a chance to see what happens when an athlete whose entire career has been built around the ocean is placed in a completely different competitive environment.
Surfing demands balance, coordination, explosive movement, stamina and mental control, but none of that guarantees an easy ride when the challenge suddenly involves a hundred highly conditioned Italian athletes. The sea is one thing; a room full of people equally determined to win is another.
My take is that Edoardo Papa is probably one of the more interesting athletes to watch on Physical 100: Italy, precisely because surfing gives him a different skill set from many conventional strength-focused competitors. He has spent years learning how to react rather than simply overpower a situation, which could prove surprisingly useful when challenges become unpredictable. His career also has a genuinely appealing progression: a father introduces him to the ocean, the hobby becomes a profession, the rankings steadily improve, and now he is testing himself outside the environment where he is most comfortable.
The funniest part is that after travelling around the world looking for difficult waves, he has apparently decided that what he really needed was a Netflix competition with 99 other athletes. Fair enough. If nothing else, Papa's story proves that sometimes the best way to find out how good you are is to leave your comfort zone — preferably after spending years becoming extremely good at surviving it.
For now, Edoardo Papa remains firmly focused on surfing, with international competition, training and bigger manoeuvres still driving his career. Physical 100: Italy may introduce him to a much wider audience, but his story did not begin with Netflix and certainly does not end there.
From Pescara and that first ocean trip to Fuerteventura, to national-team success and a current place among the world's top surfers, his career has been built steadily rather than overnight. So, what do you think: can Papa's surfing fitness give him an edge over the other competitors, or will the dry-land challenges expose an entirely different side of the athlete? Let us know where you stand.