Cover photo: Arena with Fernando Aguerre and Carlos Neuhaus. Credit: Zanocchi 

The legendary founder of the International Surfing Association, Eduardo Arena, passed away yesterday at noon, the current president of the organization, Fernando Aguerre, reported on his social networks.

Arena was 92 years old and was in Lima when he suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest.

In addition to being one of the pioneers of Peruvian surfing, he founded the International Surfing Federation in 1965 and organized the world championships from that year until 72.

According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, he began surfing in front of the Waikiki Club in 1946, 10 years later he won an international tournament held in Peru.

He was an engineer by profession and a surfer at heart. In 1964, when the first surfing world championship was held in Sydney, which is considered by Anglo-Saxon historians to be the first, he decided to organize surfing and created the federation that is now taking the sport to Tokyo 2020.

“Infinite sadness,” wrote Fernando Aguerre on his Instagram. “Today is a very sad day for world surfing. Yesterday at noon, the great Eduardo Arena, founder and first president of the ISA, passed away. He was my 'father' at the ISA. A visionary who reached 92 years of age and whom I was lucky enough to meet and enjoy during his last 13 years of life. Known as the Arena Monster.”

We will expand.