ISA and ASP to host groundbreaking Surfing Festival in China
The International Surfing Association (ISA) and Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) will be holding dual events at the groundbreaking Hainan Wanning Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival that is scheduled to go down at Hainan Island in China from
January 6-14.
The ISA President Fernando Aguerre is calling the upcoming Surfing Festival a historical occasion, while further adding that, “We created the festival and we wanted to have a team event in the traditional ISA format, with the top 8 surfing nations in the
world based on the 2010 ISA World Surfing Games ranking, but also an ASP 4-Star. Everything’s set for a historic competition. It is historic because the ISA and the ASP are working together for this, sharing efforts to have the best possible festival.”
The first of the two events in the Festival, ISA China Cup, will be invitation-only, with the field comprising of the top eight surfing countries in the world. The selection of the countries to be invited to the event was done on the basis of the results
of National Teams in the 2011 ISA World Surfing Games that went down in Panama recently.
All eight National Teams have accepted the invitation, which means that America, Australia, South Africa, Peru, Venezuela, France, Brazil and Argentina will be sending their respective teams comprising of four of country’s best male and two female short-boarders
to the event.
The surfers will not only be competing to earn gold medal for their team, but also aiming to earn individual gold medals.
The ISA event will run down at the Hainan Island from January 6-9, after which the Surfing Festival will move on to the next event, the Hainan Classic. The ASP Men’s 4-star contest will continue from January 11-14.
With a total prize purse of $95,000 USD on offer, the first-ever ASP event in China that will affect ASP Men’s World Ranking will not only be a historical occasion, but is also expected to a thrilling and memorable affair.
The site for the upcoming surfing competitions was selected by ISA after consultation with the renowned surf forecaster and founder of Surfline.com, Sean Collins. According to Collins’ analysis, Riyue Bay was the most promising site to hold the competition
as the probability of receiving world-class waves there was high.
It will indeed be interesting to see if the latest surfing venue lives up to the expectations and delivers high-performance waves. The ISA and ASP will surely be hoping for the Surfing Festival to turn out a success.
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