Costa Rica Selection for Central American Surf Championship

The Costa Rican national surf team that will represent the country at the Central American Championship on March 21 to March 23 in Playa Venao, Los Santos, Panama was selected yesterday. Costa Rica is currently the 2-time winner of the Championship and is looking to defend its title for the third year in a row.

The lineup was decided using the current top four ranked surfers in each category in the 2007-2008 Costa Rica National Circuit, which is still in progress until the final event in Playa Hermosa, April 26-27.

Costa Rica has been the only Central American Surf Champion to date after the first tournaments that were held in Costa Rica in 2006 and Guatemala in 2007. In last year’s event Tico’s won across the board with Federico Pilurzu at 1st place in the Open category, Jairo Perez in Juniors and Lisbeth Vindas in Women’s.

The presence of Federico Pilurzu, who came in first in the Open category two years in a row, has yet to be confirmed as he would have to miss a World Qualifying Series event to compete.

Competing in the championship will be teams from Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica. Some of the biggest threats to the Costa Rican title include Gary Saavedra, Diego Salgado and Alejandro Alfonso from Panama, Jimmy Rotherham and Wilbert Alvarenga from El Salvador, Luis Charmorro and Roque Calderon from Nicaragua, Abner Rivera from Guatemala.

The Costa Rican team will begin training in the next couple of days in Playa Hermosa, Puntarenas in front of the Hotel Terrazas del Pacifico where they believe the conditions are similar to those in Playa Venao, Panama. The team will then take an 11 hour journey to Panama by land on March 19th for training on the 20th.

The Costa Rican lineup is as follows:

Open
Gilbert Brown
Mattias Braun
Jason Torres
Diego Naranjo

Junior (Sub 18)
Jairo Pérez
Anderson Tascón
Carlos Muñoz
Ariel Agüero

Mujeres
Lisbeth Vindas
Nataly Bernold

Longboard
Mauricio Umaña
Cedric Auffret

Bodyboard
Joan Mojica
Richard Marín

Female Bodyboard
Jimena Calvo

Photo courtesy of Phillippe Demarsan.

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Filed under: Surf on March 6th, 2008