Indian surfers in top 3, SFI to ramp up training: Rammohan Paranjape

Mangaluru: Indian Surf Team won the bronze medal in the overall Men’s Team standings at the Asian Surfing Championship, held at Thulisdhoo Island in Maldives. 18 countries from Asia took part in this championship. Mangaluru-headquartered Surfing Federation of India (SFI) President Ram Paranjape told Hans India.

The Asian Surfing Championship 2023 is a co-organised event by the Asian Surfing Federation, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Community Empowerment, and the Maldives Surfing Association.

The Asian Surfing Championship has been the largest surfing competition in Asia since 2004. It is open to all Asian nations, and this year’s competition featured surfers from 18 countries. The Surfing Federation of India sent a team comprising four senior Surfers in the men’s category and 2 Surfers in the Under 18 category. The team did exceptionally well in their inaugural Asian Surfing Championships, going neck to neck against the defending champions Japan and also other strong surfing nations such as Indonesia, Maldives and China.

There was a lot of appreciation and accolades from the organisers and other surfing nations for Indian team performances as we are still a young surfing nation with limited exposure to competitive surfing. Surfing Federation of India has vowed to provide more coaching and training for the deserving athletes to further progress and participate in more international events in the coming years.