COSTA RICA AND JASON TORRES MAKE HISTORY AS BOTH EARN THE COUNTRY’S FIRST-EVER SILVER MEDALS AT IX PAN AMERICAN SURFING GAMES IN BRAZIL
Playa Olivenca de Ilhéus - Bahia, BRAZIL, November 15, 2009 – Riding on the extraordinary surfing of a slew of Ticos, the best of whom ended up in 2nd place overall in the IX Pan American Surfing Games, the Costa Rica National Surf Team today made history by placing 2nd in the Games that took place at Playa Olivenca de Ilhéus – Bahia, Brazil.
With the skills of Jason Torres earning his first silver medal in the Open, Costa Rica secured its 4th consecutive pódium visit at the PanAmerican Surfing Games since 2003. In this opportunity, however, rather than mining Bronze and Copper as before, the overall points earned by the team resulted in their earning a silver medal and a subchampionship at these PanAmerican Surfing Games.
This team silver medal is even more significant since Costa Rica competed in Brazil with an incomplete team. From the nine selections that arrived here, only Peru, Venezuela and Guadalupe brought the full 15 athletes for the 6 categories. Costa Rica took 8 competitors.
“We do not really believe it,” said José Ureña, President of the Federacion de Surf de Costa Rica and Technical Director of the Costa Rica National Surf Team. “The praises of the other teams and people who followed up in these competitive days came at us from all sides. It’s not something that we can say enough, but the work that we managed to do has been even better because we arrived here with only 60 percent of a team.”
Torres ended up in the final heat by winning 2nd place in Repercharge Heat 6, where he bested the other high-ranking Costa Rican Jair Pérez. Pérez ended these PanAmerican Surfing Games ranked #5.
The final heat of the event was actually won by Brazilian Ruda Carvalho, and also featured besides Torres, Venezuelan Rafael Pereira and Brazilian Franklin Serpa. The 25 minutes provided a great end, where Asociacion Latin American Surfing Champion Pereira in his first route, put out the best wave of the series with 8.83—a magnificient demonstration of radical 360 air. Torres, who impressed the judges, imitated the Venezuelian in a maneuver, but only scored 6.83. The attacks of the Brazilians almost immediately sent the Tico to 4th position. During the last 5 minutes, Carvalho managed sufficient risk to jump to champion with a combination of 14.56, while Torres urged on with a 6.51 to bounce into 2nd.
Counting down, a true race ensued between Torres and Serpa that stayed strick and managed to bring the Tico a wave that would ultimately surpass need. It arrived in the form of a 6.67 and the cementing of the silver.
Torres has made history before in the PanAmerican Surfing Games: he holds Costa Rica’s only gold medal—for Juniors in 2005 Peru.
The points Torres earned in Brazil, along with the higher rankings of the rest of the Costa Ricans, brought the team its 4th consecutive podium visit since 2003. In Ecuador 2003, there were 3rd place, 4th place 2005 in Peru, and 4th place 2007 in Chili. Now they rise to 2nd place in Brazil.
“Hopefully, this arrives for all to see this institution of surfing doing well in Costa Rica, so that people can support it and see that it gives a lot of merit to the country. We arrived incomplete because of the price of the airline tickets being so expensive, so I want to be thankful to the surfers we had and be pleased that they made Costa Rica the second best surfing nation on the American continent,” exclaimed Ureña.
JASON TORRES, CARLOS MUÑOZ, JAIR PĖREZ ENTER TOP 10
AT IX PAN AMERICAN SURFING GAMES IN BRAZIL
by Carlos Brenes and Ellen Zoe Golden
NATALY BERNOLD AT THE IX PANAMERICAN SURFING GAMES, PHOTO BY FABIAN SANCHEZ
Playa Olivenca de Ilhéus - Bahia, BRAZIL, November 11, 2009 – With the current classification yesterday of Costa Rica’s Jason Torres (Jaco), Carlos Muñoz (Esterillos), and Jair Pérez (Jaco) into Round 3 of the Open main event, the Ticos have made it into the Top 10 best in the IX PanAmerican Surfing Games that are taking place at Playa Olivenca de Ilhéux – Bahia, Brazil this week.
The ride has taken them to this point where they have ended up in the same heat 2, along with Brazil’s Ruda Carvalho. In the best case scenario, two of the Costa Rican surfers can place 1st and 2nd to pass to Round 4 and send a 3rd to repercharge. Otherwise, in a worse case option, Carvalho could place 1st or 2nd, and 2 Ticos will finish up in repercharge. Failing from there in repercharge, a Costa Rican is guaranteed at least a 6th place finish or better in these PanAmerican Surfing Games.
Meanwhile, while waiting for that main event puzzle to play out, the Costa Rican National Surf Team today added more points to its final ranking with the help of its other members. Today in Round 1 of repercharge, Isaac Vega of Tamarindo was brilliant with a combination of 11.26 that allowed him to reach 2nd place in his heat behind 1st place Chilean Juan Lombardi, and upfront of 3rd place Guadalupean Jean Charles Debret and 4th place Venezuelan Jesus Ortega.
“In the Open category, the boys have felt quite comfortable, and we hope to maintain our focus and remember the reason why we’ve come here. The local level of surfing is quite high, so we are already in a zone where errors are not allowed, and we have to delivery everything we have in the water,” said José Ureña, President of the Federacion de Surf de Costa Rica and the Technical Director of the Costa Rica National Surf Team.
During the Junior repercharge Round 1 today, the 16 year old surfer Nataly Bernod of Jaco ran waves in the male division, for the second time, yet saw defeat and placed 4th place against surfers Sebastian Nos of Peru in 1st, Paul Hernandez of Guadalupe in 2nd and Facundo Ane of Argentina in 4th. Bernold is out of the Juniors now.
In the Women’s category, however, Bernold remains strong, and has already classified to the quarterfinals of the main event. Like the males in the Open, she can fall no less than a 10th place ranking from here on out.
Today at the IX PanAmerican Surfing Games, Costa Rica found itself rooting for its substitutes in the Bodyboard male and female divisions. But shortboard experts Vega, Anthony Fillingim (Jaco), and Lisbeth Vindas (Jaco), all fell into repercharge right off the bat. In repercharge they will try to add points to the overall team total.
“We have to remember that this is our weak spot in these Games, that 40 percent of our team could not travel here to compete in these categories, and that this will weigh in on our ranking. Nevertheless, the hard work in our strong categories is where we must focus in order to obtain our goal,” expressed Ureña.
In order to follow the IX PanAmerican Surfing Games go to http://www.fpsurf.com.br/eventos/09/pan/pan01/l-aovivo0.html
NATALY BERNOLD AT THE IX PANAMERICAN SURFING GAMES PHOTO BY FABIAN SANCHEZ
