ORNELLA PELLIZARI  

The following is an article that was published on the Latin American Surfing Association –ALAS- webpage, after Ornella Pellizari became the second Hispanic American Surfer in history of surfing to win a WQS.

After comfortably winning, for two years in a row, the Ladies division of the Latin Tour, Argentinean Ornella Pellizari decided to keep training to take a shot in world class events.

Once the 2006 Latin Tour came to an end in the Reef Classic Latin Pro Puerto Rico, unlike the rest of the competitors that went back home for holidays, Ornella stayed training at Puerto Rican waves. She was invited to stay at the Toth family house, where she trained with some of the best Latin American surfers such as Brian and Wesley Toth and Dylan and Josie Graves. 

Without the support of a main sponsor, spending more than one year far from her family and his hometown, Mar del Plata, the sacrifice brought its reward after she won the Jacks Pier Pro, one star WQS at Huntington Beach. It was the first QS Ornella competed and the first she won. With this, she became the second Hispanic American Surfer, after Sofía Mulanovich, to ever win a contest of the ASP World Professional Surfing Tour.

 We will see what the future holds for this young Latin talent. At only 19 years old and with solid surfing ability under her feet, Ornella has everything in position to win.

 In the following interview the young Argentinean talks a bit about her experiences of the past months and, of course, about her great victory.  

After the last 2006 Latin Tour stage in Puerto Rico, what have you been doing?

I trained almost everyday; lots of hours in the water and in different type of waves. I went to the water when it was epic and when it was bad, because, as we all know on most of the competitions the waves are small with onshore winds.  

I stayed for three months at the Toth family house, so I surfed with the Puerto Rico boys, Wesley and Brian Toth, Dylan and Josie Graves, Jacob, the Bursian and I learnt a lot by watching them surfing. All of them rip and have great styles. By being with them in the water it forced me to improve my surfing.  

I als tried to paid back to the Toth family; because they were great to me by  painting, cleaning, etcetera… Simple things that I never do back home –laughs-. 

What are your plans for 2007?

My plan is to make as much WQS and Pro Juniors competitions as I can. It is not easy, we know how expensive it is, but the idea is to gain points to get a better seeding and do the entire 2008 WQS. 

I know you don´t have a main sponsor. What are you doing to survive?

I have two sponsors that give me products: Orbital and Bennett Dion foam. My mom and my aunt get those products and sell them back in Argentina and send me the money. But when I travel the money gets out of my pocket pretty fast so I have to go to plan B which is selling my used boards, win a contest or work. 

How was the event at Huntington?

I traveled by my own and stayed at the house of a friend of the Toth´s. She lives eight blocks far from the pier. So I went walking to the contest site early in the morning I looked for a space of my own in the beach and watched all the heats until having my chance to surf. 

In the quarters and semis I placed second but I was confident, I knew that I was going to give everything I had in the final.

So when the time came the waves were really bad, windy and smaller. It was hard to find the opening face for doing at least two or three moves. I stared at the waves for a lot of time so when the horn sounded I was far away from the rest of the contestants, just waiting for my waves.  

And well, the 30 minutes heat came to an end and I came in without knowing if I was still in first place, and when I heard the announcer saying that the winner was “Ornella from Argentina or Italy, where is she from? I was so stoked it was too perfect to be real!  

I don´t know what the other girls were thinking, maybe they could be asking themselves who am I or where I come from. In fact, they already had asked me that.  

The feeling when they announced that you were the winner:

It was crazy; I had a big smile on my face, it was like fairy tale. I kept telling myself: “No, no!” So I started thinking about all the tribulations I had to go through to achieve this. Like being more than one year away from my home, my friends and my family. The fear of having invested that much money and maybe fail… Lots of things went through my head. I thought about my parents, about how happy they would be watching me through the webcast. I don´t know, it was crazy, but in that moment I was really happy. 

A conclusion about this experience

What I think is that when you really want something and you put your mind, soul and sacrifice for this to happen, you always win. Every effort has its rewards and nothing is impossible.  

What next?

Finally Argentina! I miss Mar del Plata, my home town. I want to spend a couple of months there in my place, keep training and getting ready for the next WQS in July at South Africa. If I can, I will compete at Brazil and at the US Open and maybe England. Another important thing I´m going to do is finish high school. 

How can a surfer that wins WQS events not have a main sponsor?

It is possible and is nothing new and more if you consider that we´re from Latin America. There are lots of lost talents because they are not able to show their surfing on the important events. All the sponsors know that and what happens is that they don’t have enough budget. to sponsor us. 

Now, the support of a main sponsor is really important in order to keep going upstairs, this is just the beginning. I need to get more results and make myself a recognized surfer. My first WQS was a great start and I really hope for this to keep bringing me positive things.

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