Cover photo: Johannes Bock

The Santos del Mar Invitational Championship in El Buey de Arica will bring together 32 surfers to compete in the first round of a new national big wave championship in Chile. The dates for the event are still to be defined.

A circuit of this type is unprecedented in Latin America, according to Roberto Duran, organizer of the first event, and aims to provide the tools and support to launch Chilean and South American athletes to compete in big wave events worldwide.

Where did the idea of ​​a big wave tour for Chile come from?
It comes from Chile's nature. We are a country with swell conditions all year round, which makes us a country with big wave athletes trained for these conditions, who have made Chile known throughout the world, such as Ramón Navarro, who has given the country great satisfaction.

During one of those surf trips with friends from the south, we met up with Diego Medina to talk about Chilean surfing and the same energy was formed to achieve this project and we as people from Arica became part of it.

What are the main challenges in creating this circuit?
As an organization, our main challenge is to have a quality event that places Arica as one of the most important big wave spots in South America, giving international exposure to our athletes. We have unique quality in big waves, El Buey provides conditions in every sense to achieve an event at the level that our city deserves, where the objective is also to unite South American big wave surfing, with our Peruvian, Brazilian, Argentinean brothers, etc.

Before having a national tour event, we always aimed to have an international event. But the conditions were met with the (Chilean) federation, with which we aim to unite Chile with a federated tour in different cities of our country, including Arica, Pichilemu, Easter Island and others to be defined.

This motivates us greatly to be able to provide all the tools for the development of our Chilean athletes.

Who can participate? Are there any prizes offered?
Due to the natural conditions of the surf, where physical and psychological capacity play a fundamental role in surfers, we want to count on the support of high-performance athletes, the most experienced and outstanding Chilean surfers, and we also invite our South American brothers from Brazil, Peru, Argentina, etc.

We have every intention of having good prizes. For me, as a surfer, it is a priority to value the effort and professionalism of our athletes, since they are our main priority, and we are closing with the private company to have a minimum amount of 3000 dollars to distribute, as well as prizes for the best tube, the biggest wave, the wipeout of the championship, among others.

By creating an event that reflects our work as leaders, where athletes are the big winners and the conditions for their comprehensive development are provided and our city is positioned as one of the important points of Latin surfing.

What do you hope to achieve in the future with this circuit?
We hope to develop our Chilean athletes and give them the opportunity to develop themselves fully in these competitions at a national level, where the best can obtain resources and support. We also hope that they will receive government assistance to be able to continue their careers as big wave riders and that the ranking will allow them to opt as a country for international dates, to give our surfers the opportunity to achieve international development in their careers.

These are dreams that we are willing to make come true for the good development of our Chilean surfing discipline.