All photos: Jose Duarte Solis

The Pico Alto national championship has just been won by Álvaro Malpartida in a weight final that left him in first place ahead of Sebastián Correa, Joaquín del Castillo, Carlos Mario Zapata, Jarita Gómez and Piero Sáenz in that order.

With a 9,7 (x2) and an 8,17 in the grand final, Malpartida totaled 27,57, which gave him his first title on that wave. Correa and del Castillo followed closely behind, scoring 25,63 and 24,29.

“I am very happy, it was a very close final with high-quality surfers who surfed some great waves before me. Placing myself above them and winning at Pico Alto has been a lifelong dream,” Malpartida told DUKE after getting out of the water.

“This is my flagship beach, my home beach, my wave, the best, the most powerful, the biggest in Peru and we love it. Having shared a final with my brothers and winning it is a dream, today was a dream come true,” he added.

The absolute surprise of the day was the young Piero Sáenz who received the call to compete today, after Cristóbal de Col withdrew from the tournament due to having injured the big toe of one of his feet while surfing in Indonesia.

Sáenz was solid in his two heats, coming down waves and scoring the highest cumulative total heading into the grand final.

For this he won the award for the revelation of the tournament and earned himself a new peakaltera.

The sea started the day a little stormy and as the hours passed it improved.

In the grand final, one series was the one that defined everything (see photo below); Sebastián Correa was in the first and received a 9,2 and Malpartida was in the second, which was bigger and gave him 9,7.