“The growth is noticeable in Mardel and throughout the Argentine coast, but also in the world. Because surfing is not only a sport, it is also an activity and a lifestyle. It doesn’t just have to do with how you dress or what you look like, but with what the waves do to your body, mind and soul. Going to surf changes you: you get out of the water and you don’t know what happened … For years it seemed that this sensation was part of a talk by surfer fanatics, but now there are studies, such as that of the International Surfing Therapy Association.
There are also doctors from public and state organizations on other continents, who prescribe surfing for diseases or problems, such as autism, vertigo, fear, lack of confidence and even for people who were in traumatic situations, such as ex-combatants of war. This is not entirely new, 100 years ago people went to take sea baths and, for example, we knew that sea salts healed wounds. But today we are clear that these healing properties go beyond the body, we understand better why people go to the sea. There is something there that attracts, that makes people go to play with the waves. Playing is good, imagine yourself in a healing environment … That’s why surfing grows so much.
-The fact that surfing has reached the Pan American Games and the Olympic Games strengthened this popularity?
-Look, although the vast majority of surfers do not compete in championships, their performance popularizes and visualizes the sport. It’s a long row, from those first tournaments that I organized at the end of 1978 in Mar del Plata until this arrival at the Pan-American Games and the Olympic Games. Everything helped popularize the sport. These achievements for me were never an end in themselves, but a means for people to understand the vitality of a healthy sea. My hope is that it helps communities understand that we must stop treating the oceans like a garbage dump. This must stop because if the sea ends, we will end.
It is impossible, when speaking of Tokyo, not to go back in the process of a conquest in which perhaps only Aguerre believed. “Some call me the father of Olympic surfing. It is true that I led it, but it was Duke Kahanamoku (NdeR: Hawaiian who played four Olympic Games as a swimmer and won three gold medals). He asked for it in 1920 but no one came forward with the idea. But it made me think it was time to do it. The problem is that there was no clear process on how to get new sports into the Games. I didn’t have a plan and I didn’t know where to go, ”he says. In 2008, at a meeting of sports federations to which he had not been invited but entered almost by chance, Aguerre showed his teeth.
And their ideas, of course. “I told them ‘do you know the X Games, where are the young sports? They missed it because they fell asleep. Now they have a new opportunity. There are many traditional sports that no longer interest people, a change is necessary. ‘ Suddenly, I was telling them how to handle the issue and they looked at me as if to say who this is, who does he think he is … They didn’t understand, I was not part of their universe. I thought ‘these guys don’t care’. But suddenly you say to me, ‘wait, I need to introduce you to someone’ and you come back with someone younger, dressed in a cool and he says ‘you have to talk’… It was Christophe Dubi, the new Director of Sports at the IOC. He listened to me attentively for an hour and that’s how the new wave began, ”he recalls.
Aguerre thought that insertion would arrive in 2009 to enter the Rio 2016 Games, but the road was longer and the chance came in that city, but to enter Tokyo 2020: “It was the longest wave of my life, I was paddling it for 22 years ”, he concludes. And, when the moment came, it was a dream. “In 2020, when the Games were to be held, there were no waves of more than 50 centimeters on the days that the competition was stipulated.
By 2021 we needed a miracle. And it happened. A typhoon hit Tokyo at a time when there are none and we had excellent wave conditions. The president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, visited us at our headquarters, spent almost three hours doing the shaka (a typical sign of surfing with two fingers) and saying aloha (it means hello or goodbye in Hawaiian). That day we showed him what we are and the value we could give to the Olympic movement. During our lunch, watching the waves, I told him that we did not want to be there once but to remain permanently as part of the sports program, ”he explains.
On December 9, the IOC went far beyond imagination in its quest to modernize the Games: it suspended boxing, weightlifting, and the modern pentathlon, while simultaneously announcing that surfing (along with skateboarding and climbing) would remain permanently, as Aguerre dreamed. “It is a paradigm shift, the biggest in Olympic history. It is the past versus the future. I told them 13 years ago and they looked at me like I was crazy. But that’s the way it is, you have to choose and the IOC chose. Today surfing is everywhere, there are more than 50 million surfers in the world. Even the future kings of Norway and Denmark are surfers.
Surfing went from being the underdog (the weak or underdog), the outsider, to being the protagonist of the change that is coming “, says Aguerre, who does not want to be called a” leader or businessman “but prefers to define himself as a” practical idealist, philanthropist and serial organizer ”.
Fernando says that Bach and the leaders “were surprised by the camaraderie of surfing they saw in Tokyo. After the women’s final, the champion and runner-up were hugging, excited, for 6/7 seconds. Surfing generates love. And, furthermore, at the IOC they are clear that surfing helps them change the profile of those who watch the Games. The average was 54 years old and they know they had to lower it. Luckily they listened to me. It was an ant job, I won them one by one, in talks at the bar, at dinner and the elevator.
We form an indestructible fabric that we will now complete with a report that we prepared, with the very strong numbers of social networks during Tokyo. We will show them the return on the investment they made with us ”, he explains.
They have such confidence in Aguerre and the ISA that for Paris 2024 they accepted that, for the second time in history, a sport would be played on another continent. It was not easy, but the president of the ISA managed to have it played in Tahiti, on the mythical wave of Teahupoo, one of the most challenging breakers in the world. “It is something revolutionary. It only happened once, in Melbourne 56, on horseback due to the difficult transfer of the horses. This speaks to the flexibility of the IOC in the face of a changing world. As sports come that are very convenient but the conditions are not ideal in that country or city, they agree to take it to another. Poplar, as they say (Tehaupoo in Tahitian) m has mythical waves at that time and, in addition, it will be the return of surfing to Polynesia. That’s where the culture that would one day land in Hawaii was born.
It will be a bit to go back to the beginning, it will be different and very special. Of course, living in an Olympic village is an incredible experience, but you can’t always be. In Tokyo most of the surfers were not there because it was almost two hours from the beach. The same goes for the opening ceremony, beautiful too, but nothing in life is perfect. There is much more to gain than to lose by doing it in Tahiti.
-What prompted you to bet on putting up one more place in the mythical Ala Moana Surfshop, in this case in Chapadmalal?
-Everything I do has an emotional root. Forever. Historically my family was beach people and we grew up loving that culture. We always came to the beaches of the south of Marpla, my mother loved to bring us, although they were far away. Here our lives were spent at an early age. And in this case it is not to return but to continue in Chapa. Opening an Ala Moana here is special. We restore the right house and adapt it so that it has something like the Hawaiians and a little bit of the Californian ones. It’s packed with unique, historic boards, like one signed by the top 40 Olympic surfers. And there are many photos recounting this long century of surfing. The story of our lives, in short. It also has a garden with trees and a huge palm tree, with a stage in the background for surfing gatherings, movies or talks, like the one we do these days with Donald (mythical singer) and Fernando Ruiz Díaz (leader of Catupecu Machu and Vanthra). It is an ideal place to have a tea or coffee, after going surfing. A site that really is much more than a shop. I see it more as a cultural center for surfing, my big dream.
Another one that Fernando Aguerre has managed to realize in his life!
Source From: Ambito
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