By Carlos Brenes – Costa Rican Surfing
Federation - www.surfingcr.net


Carlos Muñoz is the new Costa Rican Champion

• Muñoz: Costa Rican record man. He was also crowned Under 16 and Under 18 champ.      
• Lisbeth Vindas obtains her seventh national title.

During the sixth and last stage of the National Tour, the Terraza-Reef, there was great excitement on the second day with unexpected results. Jason Torres pulled out of the semifinals of the Open division and his place was occupied by Carlos Muñoz who became the new Costa Rican National Champion.

Jason Torres had to reach the fifth position in this stage to assure the national title, but in the semifinals he got the fourth position of the heat. This placed Torres seventh overall and opened the chances for Jair Pérez and Carlos Muñoz to fight for the title if they won the 6-star event Terraza-Reef.

First, Muñoz made it as the leader of a luxury heat in the semifinal where he competed against Gilbert Brown, Diego Naranjo and Jair Pérez. Naranjo and Muñoz went to the final and waited for the results of the second semifinals where Juan Carlos Naranjo, Jason Torres, Matías Braun and Jefferson Tascón were participating. The last two won and completed the final.

Then the show began. When the horn blew to start the big final, Carlos Muñoz didn’t wait long and, in the first seconds of the heat, gave the judges a radical backhand air reverse perfectly landed that the judges awarded with 6.00 points.

During the final and throughout the competition, Jefferson Tascón showed a top to bottom surfing, with a great use of speed and power in the critical parts of the waves. Tascón was Muñoz’s toughest rival, he was in first place for a while when he surfed a perfect right. 

On the other hand, Diego Naranjo, the national champion and defending champ, put pressure on Tascón and Muñoz as well, with safe surfing and a great backside. Even he was in the first position with a good combination of his best two rides.

But Muñoz and Tascón defended the heat with their first waves of great score. Then Tascón attacked again with one of his classic moves; the wave selection gave him perfect walls where he showed his best level of surfing, with waves up to 5 feet at Terrazas on Saturday.

Tascón took the lead but his lack of experience in a final hindered him. He interfered on Matías Braun thus half of the points of his second best wave were taken away.

When five minutes out of the 20 were left of the final, in the last set of the heat, Muñoz who had seized the inside some minutes before, performed another air reverse and continued ripping it to the shore. The judges gave him 8 points for that move, which made a combination of 15.34.

With 2 minutes left, Muñoz’ friends and family were anxiously waiting for him at the shore to take him in arms. When it was finally over, Muñoz was all joy. The audience at the beach, more than 1,000 persons was thankful for the surfing and music show. 

 “In moments like this, I only want to say thank you to the people who supported me for this to be possible, to my family, to Arturo Quiroz, to my friends, my sponsors and to the tour. And thank you all of you for being here,” said Muñoz in his champion’s speech.

Carlos Muñoz managed to break a record again in the National Tour. Yesterday he became, at 16 years, the champion of the under 16, under 18 and Open divisions, a new record of age for a national champion.
These are Muñoz’ National Championships:

2005: under 12.
2006: under 14.
2007: under 16 and under 14. 
2008: under 18 and under 16.
2009: Open, under 18 and under 16.

Moreover, yesterday he almost repeated what he had done at Playa Carmen on the fifth stage. But he was the runner-up in the Junior division this time following Anthony Segura. He did win the under 16 and Open.

Lisbeth renews
Costa Rica is used to relating the name Lisbeth Vindas with the title of national champion. Yesterday this relationship was renewed at least for one more year because the surfer from Jacó managed to win the last stage and obtained her seventh title of the season.


Final of the Surfing Metropolitan Tour, Playa Hermosa
Jorge Berrocal from Escazú became Metropolitan Champion

•  Giannio Ferrandino from San Ramón de Alajuela, obtained for the second consecutive time the bronze of the championship.
  
  
• Software Refresh worked perfectly on its first test and it gives the competition an advance.     

The former Chepeño Tour Champion, Jorge Berrocal from Escazú became today the best metropolitan surfer of this year. It was necessary just for him to make it to the semifinals of the third and last stage of the Metropolitan Tour in order to become the first champion of this tour.

The third and last stage of the Metropolitan Tour was carried out in the area called La Curva at Playa Hermosa. It gathered together about 40 surfers and had waves of 3 to 5 feet tall in the morning and part of the afternoon. The conditions were perfect.

The surfer from Escazú was under a lot of pressure, because during the competition he had to compete against Jose Daniel Valerín, the runner up on the ranking. Both of them advanced to the semifinals.

Even though Giannio Ferrandino, the poet, won this stage –the second stage he won-, and even though he was in the final with Carlos Roberto Agüero –second in Esterillos-, Berrocal scored 1.110 points and a total of 4.570 points, Valerín followed him with 4.190 points, Ferrandino was third with 4.000 points and the last medal was for Gonzalo Valerín with 3.400 points.

With these results, Berrocal obtained his second consecutive championship in these competitions for surfers who are not from coastal states. The last Chepeño Tour had given him a title in the year 2006.
“I’m really happy for having participated in this Metropolitan Tour, we are really riding with professional rules and this will bring to this tour even more surfers in futures editions. We loved the competition, this experience is incredible,” said the champion.  

On the other hand, the winner of this stage, Giannio Ferrandino said: “I’m sorry that I didn’t participate on the first stage at Jacó, which would have given me a best place in the competition. But next year I will do my best.”


Two Junior Champions
The fact that the championship had three stages with the same 5-stars category, made it possible for this event to have a tie among the champions only if they coincided on their three results. And that is what happened. Lamberto Micageli and Enrique Uribe obtained the positions 2, 1 and 3 and 3, 2 and 1 on the three stages of this Championship that were carried out at Jacó, Esterillos and Hermosa.

Thus, this “divided gold” will be delivered to the surfers tonight at Planktom Surf Camp in Jacó, when the winners of the stage will get their trophy too.  

These two champions as well as the young surfer Jeremy Seguro, who is only 12 years old, are at a similar level of competition. That’s why a great rivalry among them is expected to be seen in future metropolitan championships.


Paula Coto, the Metropolitan
This third stage didn’t have the number of female surfers registered needed to open the division, at least 3 are required; so the title will be for the winner of the stage where female surfers did participated, at Esterillos. Paula Coto with 2.000 points is the new Metropolitan Champion.

Nevertheless, as Coto was eager to compete, she accepted to participate in a masculine division. She competed in heat 6, first round of the Open division. She obtained the fourth position but she was included on the masculine ranking. The organization of the event rewarded her as they had done with the female surfer Kailani Jimenez in previous editions.

About the International Surfing Association (ISA)
The International Surfing Association (ISA) is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the World Governing Authority for surfing, bodyboarding and surfriding. It was originally founded as the International Surfing Federation in 1964 and has been running world championships since 1964 and the Junior World Championships since 1980.

ISA membership includes the surfing National Governing Bodies (NGBs) of over 50 countries on six continents. Its headquarters are located in San Diego, California. It is presided by Fernando Aguerre, first elected in 1994 in Rio, and re-elected six times since. The ISA's four Vice Presidents are Alan Atkins (Australia), Robin de Kock (South Africa), Mike Gerard (USA) and Karin Sierralta (Peru).

BACK TO HOME