Nicaragua in the third Central America Surf Competition

The third edition of the Central America Surf Championship was held in Panama from the 21s to the 23^rd of March. Teams from Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador competed.

Every country brought their best surfers to compete in different categories:
- 4 open Men
- 4 Juniors
- 2 open Women
- 2 Longboard
- 2 Bodyboard Men
- 2 Bodyboard Women

The Nicaraguan National Selection was made up of the 11 best surfers in Nicaragua determined by the results of the Claro Nicaragua Surf Circuit. The Nicaraguan surfers come from San Juan del Sur and the Tola region of southern Pacific Nicaragua. The small surf towns in Tola have some of the best waves in all of Central America and produce some of the best Nicaraguan surfers. Here is a list of the Nicaraguan surfers and the categories that they competed in:

Open Men

Luis Chamorro
Augusto Chamorro
Mario Martinez
Samir Duarte

Juniors

Rex Calderon
Junior Martinez
Darwin Jacamo
Larry Davila

Open Women

Ashley Blaylock
Elsy Marin

Longboard

Roque Calderon
Junior Martinez

Bodyboard Men

Rex Calderon
Darwin Jacamo

Bodyboard Women

Ashley Blaylock

The Nicaraguan National Surf Team traveled to Panama City, Panama Wednesday, the 19^th of March thanks to a 50% discount on airline tickets given by Copa Airlines. The Nicaraguan National Surf Team was greeted at the airport by the president of the Federation of Panamanian Surf, Ruben Garcia. The team loaded onto a microbus and was taken to Playa Venao in the province of Los Santos on the Pacific coast, 5 hours from the capital.

Thursday was a training day and the Nicaraguan surfers worked hard to analyze and get to know the type of wave, and the tidal conditions that Playa Venao offered.

In the morning on Friday classification began in the different categories and in the afternoon the first rounds of competition started. Luis Chamorro classified for the second round in the Men’s Open category, Rex Calderon in Juniors, and Roque Calderon in Longboard for the Nicaraguan National Surf Team.

On Saturday in the second round Luis Chamorro went up against Diego Salgado from Panama and Juan Carlos Naranjo from Costa Rica. Luis was in the third position in the heat, but thanks to his intelligence and ability he managed to get his adversary penalized and finished in first place in the semifinals. Rex Calderon was in first position in his heat from the beginning demonstrating the ability that he had shown on the Nicaraguan National Surf Circuit.

The semifinals and the finals were on Sunday. Roque couldn’t find any good waves and was eliminated from the finals in the longboard competition. In the Open Men’s category, Luis Chamorro confronted 3 of the best professional surfers that Costa Rica has to offer: Gilbert Brown, Diego Naranjo and Luis Vindas. It was one of the best heats in the Central America Surf Competition. Wave after wave the four surfers showed their domination of their boards. Luis finished in third place and didn’t advance to the finals. In the Juniors category Rex continued his domination from the first wave and classified in first place.

Immediately before the finals started the wind changed direction and the waves lost their good form creating a bad feeling for all the surfers and spectators. Rex was not accustomed to surfing in onshore wind conditions because in Nicaragua the wind direction is perfect nearly all year.

The Juniors final was extremely close, the point difference between the finalists was minimal, but this didn’t bother Rex. It simply helped him to demonstrate in front of everyone the diversity and level of competition that he possesses at such a young age. Mr. Rex Calderon (as the team calls him) was crowned the new Champion of Central America Surf in the Junior Category. The Nicaragua Surf Team was ecstatic and exploded chanting REX! REX! REX! Meanwhile, Rex showed his happiness with the big smile that characterizes him. This was not just a victory for Rex but for the future of surf in Nicaragua.

The final results in the team competition were as follows:

1. Costa Rica

2. Panama

3. Nicaragua

4. El Salvador

5. Guatemala

The next Central America Surf Competition will be held in El Salvador and Nicaragua will host in 2010.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 6:35 pm and is filed under Nicaragua, Surfing, San Juan del Sur. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.