José Ureña, President of the Federacion de Surf de Costa Rica (FSC), announced the selection of the National Costa Rican Surf Team that will compete for their country at the 2008 International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games (WSG) that will take place October 11 through 19, 2008 in Costa de Caparica, Portugal.

The surfers selected will return to the event where they excelled in 2006's WSG, which took place in Huntington. During those Games, the tricolor reached 8th place out of 32 countries. In addition, for the first time in the history of the World Surfing Games, Costa Rica returned home with medals around their necks--arriving at a 4th place finish during the ISA Nations Cup Tag Team event. They earned copper medals and bécame National hometown heros.

And finally, individually, Puerto Viejo's Gilbert Brown ranked the highest Latino out of the 100 competitors.

In Portugal, this will be the Ticos third participation since the creation of the FSC in 2000. In 2004 Ecuador, the National Costa Rican Surf Team finished 9th, and the improvement to 8th was considered a successful rise.

With the goal of even more improvement, the list of the 2008 National Costa Rican Surf Team includes:

OPEN
Gilbert Brown/Puerto Viejo
Luis Vindas/Jaco
Jason Torres/Jaco
Germaine "Nino" Myrie/Puerto Viejo
Matías Braun/Montezuma (substitute)
Isaac Vega/Tamarindo (substitute)


WOMEN'S
Lisbeth Vindas/Jaco
Nataly Bernold/Jaco
Verónica Quirós /Jaco (substitute)

LONGBOARD
Diego Naranjo/Jaco
Cristian Santamaría/Jaco (substitute)

BODYBOARD WOMEN'S
Jimena Calvo/Boca Boranca
Cindy Díaz/Jaco (substitute)

BODYBOARD
Richard Marín/Jaco
Yeffrey Gómez/Jaco
Walter Gatgens/Jaco (substitute)

According to Ureña, this year's WSG will be a great challange for the National Costa Rica Surf Team for several reasons. First, because they will have to surpass the international results of the previous National Selection. And, second, Portugal is the waiting room for the 2009 World Surfing Games which will take place in Costa Rica itself. During their time in Costa de Caparica, the Federacion de Surf will be making surfing, tourist and charity presentations about Costa Rica, which will be preparing to host the entire event next year.

The ISA made the decisión to transform the WSG to an annual tournament from every two years, which means the 2009 Games in Costa Rica will take place in July--less than a year away.

"It is of extreme importance for us to play a good role in Portugal," expressed Ureña. "We need to demonstrate that, at this level, Costa Rica is 100% competitive. At the present time, we are taking into account that we are one of the great ones and that we are have already located ourselves inside the Top 10 in the past two World Surfing Games."

With the 2009 World Surfing Games to take place in Costa Rica, the expectations have already risen with respect to the participation of almost 50 National Selected teams, as well as their main stars of the international surf world.

"Not to worry," Ureña said. "We are going to present to everyone in Portugal all aspects of Costa Rica, answers to tourist and surfing questions. That way, we can show that the 2009 World Surfing Games will take place in one of the top surfing destinations in the world and all the countries that come to Costa Rica will not only be well take care of, but they will have some of the best surfing in the world."

Previous to the departure from Costa Rica to Portugal and those 2008 World Surfing Games, the FSC takes over the Annual Torneo Benéfico de Surf, in its sixth year at Boca Barranca, Puntarenas. The contest helps finance the programs and basic needs of the boy's home Hogar Monserrat de Niños, located in San Miguel de Barranca. The format of this contest will include only three categories--Open, Women's and Juniors.

The contest will take place September 12, 13 and 14.

This article is from a press release posted on

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news