In an unusual event in the world of surfing, which prefers to stay away from political events in nations, yesterday in Mar del Plata the 40 years of freedom that the sport has had in Argentina was celebrated.

The driving force behind the celebration was the president of the International Surfing Association, Fernando Aguerre, who promoted a poster with an image of the liberator of Argentina, San Martín, with a surfboard and the phrase: “From forbidden to Olympic.”

The day included a surfing session with VIPs from the Argentine jet set and an evening that included local professionals, Martín Passeri and Maxi Siri, Aguerre himself and his family and a spirit among those present that something worth celebrating was taking place.

“Almost without realizing it, I thought about the fact that surfing is something that can be taken away from us. Who knows if that principle, with that great obstacle, is not the root of having spent so many years working as a volunteer to promote the sport? And that the push we gave it was so strong that we ended up having the sport in the Olympic Games… I don’t know, but I can say that yesterday was a night to remember,” Aguerre told DUKE.

The last military dictatorship in Argentina (76 to 83) was one of the bloodiest in Latin America, thousands of people disappeared and died and one of the measures taken, especially in Mar del Plata where surfing already existed, was to ban it.

"There was practically no surfing allowed on any of the city's beaches. If we wanted to go to the southern beaches, opposite the military base, they would shoot us in the air or wait for us at the exit, they would put us in jail, they would confiscate our boards," Aguerre told local media outlet InfoBae.

What Aguerre's administration did was convince the city authorities that Mar del Plata was a surfing capital, he organized a de facto association and founded the Argentine Surf Association, restoring legality to the sport in the city.