BILLABONG ISA WORLD SURFING GAMES COSTA RICA 2009 BREAKS RECORDS

·         70,000 Spectators Passed Through in 8 Days, Second Only To the WQS’ U.S. Open’s 500,000 Attendance

·         ICODER Confirms the Most National and International Coverage Ever For the Country

·         Retailers of Jaco See $2.5 Million, More Than Triple The Sales of a Regular High Season

San Jose, COSTA RICA August 28, 2009 – Prior to the Billabong International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games Costa Rica 2009, organizers thought that with the confirmation of the participation of 35 countries there would be major possibilities, and they had great expectations for the championship. Nevertheless, after almost three weeks have passed since the close of this great sporting event, the results have surpassed even their wildest expectations.

The personnel of the ISA, Billabong, as well as the Federacion de Surf de Costa Rica (FSC), all agreed that this event was the greatest surfing tournament in the history of the World Surfing Games. In the middle of one of the biggest economic crisis’s of the world, two government entities supported this event strongly—ICT (Costa Rican Institute of Tourism) and ICE (Costa Rican Institute of Electricity)—making deep investments to the Billabong ISA World Surfing Games Costa Rica 2009, and contributing to the healing of the recession that has affected this country.

Also, the Municipality of Garabito, where the World Surfing Game towns of Jaco and Hermosa are located, had tremendous vision for these Olympic Games of Surfing. Jaco offered tourist promotion like no other district in Costa Rica in the past. Now certainly, the entire world knows about Jaco, Playa Hermosa and Costa Rica.

In fact, 100 different media outlets were on hand from all parts of Costa Rica, as well as more than 50 international outlets to promote what was going on in the water and the ancillary activities as well. In total, 400 journalists were credentialed.

One of the main goals that was accomplished in these World Surfing Games was to break the record of $1 million in media space that was set at the Junior World Surfing Games in Ecuador in April of this year. With the hope of the last published articles of those who attended, it looks like it will add up to about $2 million this year. Aiding in accomplishing this task, were the various press representatives, who attended the World Surfing Games as part of each of the National Selections. They maintained media coverage for their individual teams for their respective countries on a day-to-day basis. The ISA was brilliant this year in providing a tremendous amount of text information, photographic material, video and audio for the international contingent, coming in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese.

For Franklin Solis, Press Officier for ICODER (Costa Rican Office of Sports and Recreation), the Billabong ISA World Surfing Games Costa Rica 2009 was positioned as the sporting event with the greatest media coverage in the promotion of sports in the history of Costa Rica.

“The unique thing we can compare the coverage of the World Surfing Games with are the National Games. However, the media impact internationally that we had from the Playa Hermosa event, marked an era in this country not only concerning promotion, but, in sports,” said Solis.

Another one of the goals reached by organizers was the number of spectators on the beach and the concurrent activities they attended during the 8 days of the World Surfing Games. At the closing of the event, the Costa Rican Red Cross reported that attendance of 70,000 people during the days of competition. Organizers considered the arrival of more than 80,000 to the zone of Jaco during those days. In this sense, those people contributed a minimum of $30 per day per person to the commerce and hotels of the area, adding up to approximately $2.5 million dollars.

Retails of Jaco reported the tripling of sales in comparison to a regular High Season. Billabong ISA World Surfing Games Costa Rica 2009 was the second highest event in terms of attendance in the surfing world. The U.S. Open, an Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Qualifying (WQS) event, draws 500,000 people every year. Nevertheless, these World Surfing Games had the largest attendance since its inception in 1964. The calculations of the Red Cross were that 30,000 were present on the last day of the event.

One of the main reasons that the World Surfing Games in Costa Rica drew such a large amount of people, press and money, were to a large extent the participation of the prominent figures of the surfing world. Names like France’s Jeremy Flores, the Top 10 WCT competitor who won the gold medal at these World Surfing Games; the United States’ Cory Lopez, who been a WCT competitor since 1997 and finished 3rd on the WCT this year and WCT competitor Ben Bourgeois;  Australia’s WCT competitors Mick Campbell, Dayan Neve, Samantha Cornish, Amee Donahue; Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich, the 2004 ASP Women’s WCT Champion and 2004 World Surfing Games gold medalist; and others. Karin Sierralta, Vice President of ISA and Manager of the Asociacion Latinamerica Surfistas Profesionals (ALAS) Latin Tour, confirmed that the Billabong ISA World Surfing Games Costa Rica 2009 was the one that has more stars of the ASP WCT events.

“Personally, I don’t remember seeing a surfing event with so many people by square meters in 13 years that come from the WCT, Pan-American Tour and ALAS,” commented Sierralta.

In addition, for added value, the opportunity offered the time to see several athletes of Costa Rica’s  National Surf Team in this exceptional arena, facing such strong powerful surfers. It was the fourth consecutive time that the Costa Ricans placed inside of the Top 10 in the world, and once again, Jason Torres of Jaco—the 21-year-old surfer who made the best international performance—also placed in the Top 10, coming in at #7. And there was Carlos Muñoz, the Esterillos surfer of 16, in his first World Surfing Games, coming in at #13.

It’s important to note that Latin American surfers broke a record of attendance at these World Surfing Games with the participation of 14 of a total of 15 Spanish-speaking countries. It was the first time that all 5 countries of Central America together sent teams to a World Surfing Games—Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The Latinos finished well: Costa Rica at #7 and  Peru’s Gabriel Villarán ended up 3rd place in the Open Finals.

The Billabong ISA World Surfing Games Costa Rica had 260 competitors between its 35 countries, the highest amount of countries since the Games broke away from having Juniors included in 1996.

Also aiding in making this an outstanding event was the fact that Playa Hermosa offered up a high quality of waves during the week. Set at Hotel Terraza del Pacifico, Playa Hermosa provided waves that ranged from 3-6 foot, nice size and form, sometimes tubes, that resulted in scores that often times topped 9s.

“Thanks to the results that the Costa Rican team transcended throughout this event, it was well recognized that in this country surfing is a highly practiced sport by professionals who strive everyday for this sport to be praised every time,” concluded Jose Ureña, President of the FSC and Director of the Commission of Organization of Billabong ISA World Surfing Games Costa Rica 2009.