ISA Showcases Para Surfing -- On the Scene

(ATR) The 2017 Stance ISA World Adaptive Surfing Championship is now open.

International Surfing Association President Fernando Aguerre did the honors at the Opening Ceremony in La Jolla, California on Wednesday.

"I love the Opening Ceremony. For me it’s the bringing of the world together through the love for waves," Aguerre told Around the Rings. "It’s that mixture of nature and human activity. It’s very special. Our sport is literally immersed in nature."

The ceremony began with the Parade of Nations down the boardwalk of the La Jolla Shores beach and featured the Sands of the World Ceremony, where a representative from each nation pours sand into a container to symbolize the peaceful gathering of nations through adaptive surfing.

There are a couple of notable firsts for the 2017 edition of the event. It is the first to take place since the ISA received recognition from the International Paralympic Committee in July. Earlier this month, the ISA officially submitted its "declaration of intent" to the IPC as it works to get adaptive surfing, also called para surfing, into the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

IPC Vice-President Duane Kale arrives on Thursday and will be in attendance for at least part of the championship, ATR is told..

It will also be the first time in its three-year history that women’s divisions are part of the event program. Five of the six divisions will crown the first-ever women world champions in the sport. If they choose, women can also still compete with the men in the open competition.

Twenty women from 10 countries are set to compete, nearly tripling the total of seven women from five countries who took part last year.

The ISA is making gender equality a priority in both surfing and SUP. The 2017 ISA World SUP and Paddleboard Championship in Denmark was the first time that event offered equal slots for men and women.

The increase in the number of women participating at La Jolla Shores beach is part of the reason that a record 109 athletes hailing from a record 26 national federations have gathered for the World Championship, shattering the previous marks of 77 athletes from 21 countries set in 2016.

"For me it’s very emotional to see how adaptive surfing is progressing," Aguerre tells ATR.

"You see here 26 national federations have sent teams but you know for a lot of adaptive athletes it’s difficult to travel. There’s not a lot of funding in many cases. So we have a lot of hurdles in many cases to overcome but I think we’re on the right path to overcome it."

Prior to the Opening Ceremony, the ISA put on the Stance ISA Adaptive Surfing Clinic presented by Challenged Athletes Foundation. The goal of the clinic is to promote participation in the sport for beginning to intermediate adaptive surfers with instruction from top adaptive surfers and qualified instructors as well as to grow female participation.

The ISA first held the World Adaptive Surfing Championship in 2015 with the goal of creating a Paralympic style team event for surfers with physical challenges to represent their nations and display their talents in world-class competition.

This year’s championship begins on Thursday and runs through Sunday.

Written and reported by Gerard Farekin La Jolla, California.

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