ISA President, Fernando Aguerre, with the inaugural ISA China Cup Gold Medal Team, Australia. Eight National Teams, including the defending Team Champs, have been invited to the January 2013 event. Photo courtesy of ISA.
 
The International Surfing Association (ISA) has announced that the second edition of the Hainan Wanning Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival will be going down January 25-30, 2013 in Wanning, Hainan Island, China

"After the great success of the inaugural Hainan Wanning Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival in 2012, which produced the largest media audience ever in the history of the ISA, I’m very excited in bringing the ISA back to China,” said ISA President Fernando Aguerre.

Aguerre continued, saying:

"Surfing Teams for the ISA China Cup, and the ASP Men’s 4-Star Hainan Classic. Our partners at Womei Advertising, led by its CEO, Mr. Yang Dunhao, have once again delivered all of the financial and political resources needed for the 2013 Hainan Wanning Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival to be the most important event on the global surfing calendar next year. The opportunities for the development of surfing in China are endless, and this new event will continue our path in the right direction.”

Read on for details:

As the opening event in the Festival, from January 25 to 27, the ISA China Cup will be invitation-only featuring the top eight surfing nations in the world based on the National Team results from the 2012 ISA World Junior Surfing Championship held last July in Playa Colorado, Nicaragua.

The eight invited National Teams are Hawaii, Australia, Brazil, USA, Japan, France, Peru, and Portugal. Japan, Portugal and Hawaii will be new to the event.

Each National Team will include their country’s best four men and two women shortboarders, who will compete for Team and Individual Gold Medals and the honor of representing their nations.

Australia won the Gold in the Team Standings in the first edition of the ISA China Cup in January 2012, with Sofía Mulanovich (PER) winning the Gold in the Open Women division and Heath Joske (AUS) winning the Gold in the Open Men division.

Following the completion of the ISA China Cup, the International Surfing Festival will continue with the Hainan Classic, January 28 to 30, which the ISA has confirmed will have an ASP Men’s 4-Star rating with a total prize purse of ,000 USD.

This historic competition will be the second ASP event ever in China, both produced by the ISA, that count towards the ASP Men’s World Ranking.

Irishman Glenn Hall was crowned winner of the event last January. His victorious start to the year set him up for his best ASP season ever, which he hopes results in qualifying for a coveted spot on the 2013 ASP World Tour.

For the 2013 Hainan Classic, the ISA is expecting a field of 96 athletes, including a number of surfers of Chinese descent, including 1999 ASP World Tour Champion Sunny Garcia, who is also planning to compete for Hawaii in the ISA China Cup.

The ISA selected the left point break at Riyue Bay on Hainan Island off the coast of southeast China, after consulting with the late Sean Collins, legendary founder and President of Surfline (www.surfline.com). Collins was considered the world’s foremost surf forecaster. He conducted a historical analysis of the surf along the east coast of Hainan and, after visiting the Island in March 2011, he reported that Riyue Bay held the best opportunity for world class waves and the ISA events.

What Sean Collins said was confirmed months later, when the world’s best surfers arrived to China. They were introduced to a land with a perfect left pointbreak, which held barreling overhead waves that broke for ten straight days during the 2012 competition.

With a global media audience of more than 78 million who followed the 2012 ISA China Cup and Hainan Classic online, in print and on TV, China was introduced to the surfing world is all its glory.

The second edition of the Hainan Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival will be a historic event, the result of the combined efforts of the ISA, its partner in China, Womei Advertising, the Governments of Hainan Island and the City of Wanning.

SOURCE: transworld.net

 

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