ISA takes Huge Step towards making Surfing Olympics a Reality<\/p>\n
Adding an international flavor \u2014 ISA adds China, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailandi to its roster<\/p>\n
awesome stuff\u2026! good news<\/p>\n
Dubai, home to the next ISA World Games? Maybe not yet, but at least they\u2019re in the club.<\/p>\n
It would appear that the International Surfing Association (ISA) has taken yet another stroke closer to getting surfing in the Olympics. Historically the ISA has been dominated by surf powerhouses such as Australia, Hawaii, Brazil and the U.S., but with a membership of more than 50 nations, they\u2019re well aware of the fact that if waveriding is ever going to find footing with the IOC the obvious goal has to be the incorporation of more developing surf nations (think Jamaican bobsled team). Per the ISA\u2019s announcement last Friday, they\u2019ve now welcomed Thailand, People\u2019s Republic of China, Malaysia and the Dubai into the fold.According to their statement to the press, \u201cSurfing Thailand, Surfing China, Malaysian Surfing Association and Dubai Surfing Association have successfully fulfilled the requirements for membership.\u201d <\/p>\n
Granted, it\u2019s going to take awhile before surfing catches up with ping pong in China, and more surfers may be drawn to Thailand for the massages rather than the waves, and it\u2019s anybody\u2019s guess what kind of surf-scape the developers in Dubai will come up with (a couple years back an inventor friend told me a sheik in Dubai had approached him about building a wave pool capable of replicating Pipeline), but humor and speculation aside, as these countries begin to be more visible in the surf world it can only translate into positive growth for the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are encouraged by the recent additions of Thailand, China, Malaysia and Dubai as members of the ISA,\u201d said ISA President Fernando Aguerre. \u201d With over 25 million surfers around the world, the ISA is interested in helping them become part of our organization, and helping them build a better surfing future in their countries. This latest addition is part of our work towards the universality of surfing.\u201d<\/p>\n
ESPN Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISA takes Huge Step towards making Surfing Olympics a Reality Adding an international flavor \u2014 ISA adds China, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailandi to its roster awesome stuff\u2026! good news Dubai, home to the next ISA World Games? Maybe not yet, but at least they\u2019re in the club. It would appear that the International Surfing Association … Continue reading “Adding an international flavor \u2014 ISA adds China, Dubai, Malaysia and Thailandi to its roster”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[24],"class_list":["post-13852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-isa-surfing-news","tag-surfing-news-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13852\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saltwater-dreaming.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}