India on global surfing map after Asian C'ships: ASF secretary

New Indian Express

3 days ago

MAHABALIPURAM (CHENNAI): As the curtain sets down on the Asian Surfing Championships on Tuesday evening surfers and top Asian surfing officials have lauded the 'professional mindset and expertise' in which this meet was managed.
Organised by the Surfing Federation of India (SFI) and supported by the Tamil Nadu government, the Asian Surfing Championships kicked off here on August 3 with 19 countries and 114 athletes taking part. This event also served as a qualifier to surfing in next year's Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan. India concluded with a strong show with Ramesh Budihal's bronze medal in the Open Men's final the best performance.
Shusaku Miyabe, general secretary of the Asian Surfing Federation (ASF), explained that he was initially apprehensive before the tournament. 'As soon as we finished the first inspection of the venue, we got confident with the expertise of the SFI. After we listened to their plans of organising, we felt safe in conducting it here," he told this daily after the closing ceremony. He felt that this event has got global attention in surfing.
'Surfers worldwide must be surprised after the way in which the tournament was conducted. The countries here only had positive things to say about especially the way the tournament was managed,' he said.
Miyabe's pick in his stay here was the central kitchen where athletes from all the nations could gather in one place and interacted. 'This was not done in international surfing events. This gesture created a nice environment to mingle together. This is the atmosphere you would see in the Olympics' athletes villages," he said.
Miyabe also felt that India has set a high standard for other nations to follow on, which could be very hard to catch. 'With this event, they have definitely put themselves on the global surfing map. Officials who have been involved in the sport for 20-30 years said that this was one of the best events and they would like to come back,' he added.
Kanoa Heejae, U18 and senior champion in the men's category, enjoyed his stay here. It was his first time here. 'I learnt a lot here, I had come a week early to train and I enjoyed it,' he said.
He felt that the domestic surfers should compete more internationally to increase competition standards. 'There is a little more pressure, Everyone is a lot better there. So it's good to compete and win with better surfers,' he added.
India secure 4 quotas for Asiad
After a strong performance, India has secured four quotas in total for next year's Asian Games. They secured two more quotas on Tuesday. They initially secured the first couple of quotas in last year's edition. Two each will go to the men and women's category. Additionally Budihal secured himself a ticket to the SurfCity El Salvador ALSA Global Finals in November. In the U18 category, the boys from India finished fifth. In the girls' category they finished fourth with a copper medal with 1450 points. The men's category was where India performed best, finishing third behind Indonesia (gold) and South Korea (silver) with 1785 points. The women finished eighth.
India coach Samai Reboul was happy with the outcome from this tournament. 'We had a strategic approach to the heat. We tried to adapt to the wave and performed on limited opportunities,' he said.