Costa Rica Surfing Article: At this writing, the Costa Rica national surf team that are competing in the 2019 International Surf Association (ISA) World Surfing Games presented by Vans in Miyazaki, Japan are currently sitting in 6^th place among 55 countries. This placement comes as the result of the results by Brisa Hennessey, Leilani McGonagle and Eva Woodland in the first few days.

Hennessey finished at #7, McGonagle #17 and Woodland at #49.

Today, September 10, 2019, the guys begin their run. They are Jair Perez, Carlos Muñoz and Noe Mar McGonagle.

The best of the World Championship Tour (WCT) are in Japan, and as a result heats like Perez against multi-world champion surfer Kelly Slater come up.

Coached once again by Jim Hogan, Costa Rica surfing is at an important crossroads. The participation of Costa Rica’s best guys and gals in these next two World Cups is a result of an announcement by the ISA that these contests are a pre-resquite to selection for the 2020 Toyko Olympics.

For the Olympic Games, that rules committee has settled on a maximum number of surfers to compete in Tokyo. That number is four with 10 countries included in the whole competition.  The breakdown for Costa Rica Surfing is:

1 female from the World Surfing League (WSL) rankings as of the end 2019

2 males from the ISA rankings as of 2020

1 female from the ISA rankings as of 2020

At the moment the surfer who is closest to achieving a solid place for Costa Rica is Hennessy currently at #9 at the WCT rankings on the WSL.

It’s not clear whether Longboard and SUP will be at the Olympics.

A couple of months ago, a small contingent of national surf champions completed a week of competition at the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima. This was the first time that surfing was included in this tournament and the reason was clear. Anthony Fillingim (former national Open champ), Noe Mar McGonagle (former national Open champion and world gold medal holder), Anthony Flores (national Longboard champion) and Valeria Salustri (national Womens SUP racer) all competed is these games because it is also an Olympics qualifying contest.

After a few days, and performances that rated Fillingim and McGonagle spots in the semi-finals, they both had trouble locating just the right waves to maneuver high scores in their respective heats. Relegated to repercharge, both found the same issues and ended their runs right there—no medals in site.