Special coverage of surfing in Lima 2019 is presented by Quiksilver Peru y Surf School Tubes

On the cover photo: Fernando Aguerre with Olympic Committee President Tomas Bach. Lausanne is now experiencing waves and its surfers are doing shakas.

Fernando Aguerre has become one of the most influential sports leaders in recent years. The Olympic Committee, Panam Sports and all those institutions that years ago lacked color and abounded in conservatism, received from him a good dose of aloha that brightened their lives and made both institutions much warmer, less boring, more modern and closer.

During the Lima 2019 surfing event, on several occasions, Olympic authorities, national and international, who had nothing to do with surfing, sought to approach him, talk, or take a photo. It was a portrait of the change that surfing has experienced in recent years. First Aguerre was knocking on the door and now everyone wants to take a photo with him.

In the world of surfing today, he is one of the most powerful and influential leaders. His decisions, his actions, the paths he decides to take, end up affecting the lives of thousands of athletes. Including the best in the world who are in the CT, and also including non-surfers who lead the WSL and see in the surfing Olympism a great business opportunity.

With him, the scale of power changed in the sport that previously had the WSL as almost the only option for a career. Now the ISA, the Pan American Games and the Olympic Games, of course, presented a good new alternative for all surfers.

Not long ago there was a discussion about the clash of dates between the Pan American Games and the US Open, which, in the end, ends up being a big problem for surfers who didn't have one before because there was only one option.

Fernando has always been a controversial figure, especially among the so-called “purists” of the surfing world, because he promotes its growth; he calls them selfish and not purists because they do not want to share the joy of surfing and want to keep it for themselves.

As a Latin American in a surfing world dominated by Americans and Europeans who tend to look askance at those from other lands, Aguerre has known how to climb that mountain and teach a few lessons to those who supposedly rule the industry. An important and very unusual fact is that the Huntington Walk of Fame has only two Hispanics: Sofía Mulanovich and Fernando Aguerre.

He is responsible for several of the biggest news stories in world surfing in the coming years, starting with the debut of the sport in Tokyo 2020 and everything that will happen between there and Los Angeles 2028. What happens with the WSL and Slater's pool has to do with Aguerre, what happens with the money that the federations give to their athletes has to do with Aguerre, and the etcetera goes on for several more examples.

The following paragraphs include a long interview conducted during the surfing event at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, in which the aforementioned is discussed, but also about him as a person, his desire to continue or not to be president of the ISA after 25 years at the helm, the meticulous work involved in making surfing an Olympic event and what came after, the money needed to do it, everything that will be seen in Tokyo, among many other things.

How did surfing come to the Pan American Games and what was the importance of that in being chosen as an Olympic sport in 2016?
Logically, I include the Pan-American dream in my Olympic dream. I was elected in May 94 and in March 95 I was in Mar del Plata, and I was lucky enough that the Pan-American Games were held there. There was no surfing, logically, the ISA had no relationship with the Olympic world or the Pan-American world, but I was also lucky that through a work relationship I had contact with a person who arranged a meeting for me with Mario Vazquez Raña (a Mexican Olympic leader) and his wife.

At first it was supposed to be a meeting and then it ended up being a two-hour lunch. It was very good, I went from not having any communication with anyone in the Olympic world to meeting one of the leaders of the Olympic movement and who was the leader of Olympism in the Americas. We talked about everything, we ended up talking about surfing and when we finished talking about what I wanted to do, that my dream was to introduce surfing… Think about this before everything, even before the ISA was recognized by the IOC, he told me: “It is not a very easy thing that you want to do, I see it as quite difficult, but you must not abandon the objective or throw in the towel.” He was a man of few words, very powerful.

“What you want to do is not an easy thing, I see it as quite difficult, but you should not abandon the objective or throw in the towel,” said Mario Vazquez Raña to Aguerre in 1995.

Well, after six months, I was in Switzerland meeting with the president of the Olympic committee, I brought a donation of a board and some objects, and that's where we started on a path. Generally, when one works on an objective, sometimes one looks for the points of least resistance or the lowest fruit on the tree to reach. The Olympic movement had innumerable requirements and the obstacles were almost impossible to overcome at that time.

The first was that the games are often not held in places where there is sea. That obstacle at that time was insurmountable, there is no talk of wave machines. The next games were in Sydney, where we were not going to be included because we were already past the date for admission of sports, the next ones were in Athens and the following ones in Beijing, in other words, there were many years of games where it was absolutely impossible to access.

With the Pan American Games, I like geography and history, I discovered that in the Americas there are 41 Olympic committees and there are 39 countries that have a sea, so surfing was much more a part of the life of those countries. So I started working with the Pan American Games. Remember that my first activity before being president of the ISA was to found PASA, to be elected president, to write the constitution, to be reelected in the following six months, to organize the first Pan American Games in Margarita, to be reelected again, to organize the Pan American Games in 95 in Guadalupe, in 97 in Rio, in 99 in Mar del Plata and in 2001 the Pan American Games that ended up being held in the first months of 2002, in Margarita again.

I was in a very difficult time in my life, selling the company I had built with my brother for 20 years and I wanted to focus on the ISA, so I decided not to run for re-election to PASA. In 2005, my brother and I sold Reef and the following year I took direct operational control with the Olympic relationship that Kadú had managed (Vilella was the executive director of the ISA).

I realized that if I really wanted to put in the maximum amount of time and effort, I had to do it myself, I took that as a personal goal. At that time I remember there were only two ISA events, the World Surfing Games which was every two years and the Junior World Championships which was every year, that was all there was.

We started working for the Pan American Games and what we needed was a number of countries with federations recognized by the Olympic committees, but as you know, in the Americas there were one of the places where the national federations were less organized, less formal, there were many that appeared and disappeared, some that were practically a club and not a federation. It took us a long time to formalize and help. Back in 2013, when Bach was elected as the new president, in a conversation I had with him, I told him about Olympic surfing.

Was Lima 2019 already decided in 2013?
No, Lima wasn't there. The Olympic Games are decided seven years in advance and the Pan American Games five.

What did you say to Bach there?
What I told him was the intention of Olympic surfing, I believed that surfing was going to be something very good for the Olympic movement, and he told me that there was going to be a meeting to change the paradigm of the Olympic movement that will take place at the end of 2014, that was what was called Agenda 2020. One of the points of Agenda 2020, I still have exchanges of letters before Bach was elected president, where I proposed youth issues that he answered me.

The Olympic movement was missing out on a part of the world, a lot of new sports that were not like traditional sports were not even being discussed and I thought it was very important to include them. Based on that, one of the points of Agenda 2020 was that the entry of sports to the Tokyo games was going to be reopened.

The way he used to reopen them was that the host country, five years before the games, could request sports that were relevant to that country. At the same time, Lima was chosen as the host and he was elected and I realized that it was the perfect place for surfing. That if he managed to get it included in the Pan American games, that could be a good precedent for what would happen that year.

"The Olympic movement was missing a part of the world, a lot of new sports that were not like traditional sports were not even being talked about and I thought it was very important to include them."

Things took a much faster pace. My stroke was a resistance stroke, as if someone was pulling on my rope, and suddenly I started to feel myself letting go, like when you catch a wave and a momentum starts to build, a speed. We entered a slope, and I started to work very closely. Maile (Aguerre, Aguerre's ex-wife, ex-president of PASA and ex-vice-president of the ISA) had worked, but had never managed to get into the Pan-American Games. Then I realized that PASA was very important, maybe I wasn't going to get into the Olympic Games, but I would get into the Pan-American Games, and that would facilitate relations with the Olympic committees. With Lima, I saw that the light at the end of the tube had opened.

What specific arrangements were made for entry into Lima?
We started working mainly with Pepe Quiñones, who was at that time the president of the Peruvian Olympic Committee, a friend of surfing who had already worked with the ISA World Championships. I knew him from here, from the World Championships organization, with Karin (Sierralta). He had been present at all of them. He was a very affable guy who liked surfing and was clear that if surfing was Pan American, Peru had a good chance of winning medals. In other words, he had his interests.

When you say I started working with him, what do you mean? Is it talking to him? Lobbying?
No, we worked with him, he wanted surfing. We started working, he was the vice president of Panam Sports, which was called PASO at that time. Since he had that title, he knew all the presidents of the national Olympic committees and what we needed was to facilitate recognition between the Olympic committees and the federations. In some cases, like in Uruguay, for example, only sports that were already Pan American or Olympic could be recognized, so it was impossible to have recognition. They asked me to get into the Pan American Games, they had to be recognized in 20 countries. It's a vicious circle, I'll never get into it. But well, we spoke with Julio Maglione who helped us and with very important help we started to do work country by country, me on the side of the federations and he on the side of the Olympic committees and so we got to the point where in mid-2015 at the Toronto assembly, Lima was going to propose, as Tokyo proposed, Lima was going to propose.

Regarding Agenda 2020, was this new 2020 movement applied in that way to PASO?
No, ours was before Agenda 2020. Agenda 2020 is from December 2014 and we have been working on it since before then.

But what I'm saying is: Was the mechanism for adding sports to the Pan American Games different from that of the Olympic Games?
Yes, of course, they are two completely different processes. They are simpler. The only formality was the request from the host city and 20 federations recognised by the Olympic committees. We arrived a month and a half early and we had 17, we didn't reach 20.

As a negotiator, I sat down with Quiñones and proposed to hold a vote with the right to a suspensive condition, which is not effective until the condition is met; if the condition is not met, the vote is cancelled. So I convinced them to hold a vote with 17, but I had the obligation to obtain the 3 that were missing before the end of the year. They gave me the OK.

So I organized everything, we went to Toronto, Julio Maglione, at that time president of PASO, sat next to Pepe Quiñones who was the vice president, the point came that they were “other points at the request of the headquarters” and Julio Maglione skipped the point, that is, they didn't talk and they went on to the next point.

“And now what do we do?” I asked myself. I grabbed my phone, sent a WhatsApp message and wrote to José that they had forgotten about that subject. He looked up and approached Maglione. Then, when Julio finished speaking, he returned to the previous point and talked about including the new sports, saying that Lima requested only one sport, which was surfing, and asked if there was anyone who was opposed to it. No one was opposed and it was approved. That way, we entered the Pan American Games.

"Lima asked for just one sport, which is surfing, and asked if there was anyone who was opposed to it. No one opposed it and it was approved. That's how we entered the Pan American Games."

What impact did that precedent have on Tokyo 2020?
I think it was a bit of PR, because the Tokyo 2020 process had already started. What happened with this was that it was in March 2015, at the same time that the IOC announced that Japan would have the right to name new sports, which was wonderful.

In what month did you find out that one of the new sports was going to be surfing?
In March, they announced that applications were being opened for federations that wanted to be included in Tokyo. For 26 sports, you had to be a recognised federation, otherwise you would not be included.

We had already done that before, so we already had the conditions, 26 of us showed up in June, Tokyo decided on 8.

Did you do some PR with the Japanese?
Yes, of course, with everyone, of course. We started to get involved everywhere.

How key is that in the Olympic world?
Actually, what I am going to tell you is not very well known, but it is not a secret, it was published in the New York Times, so it is known. In June they make a shorter list of eight and the final decision is in September, on September 30 the IOC has to approve the sports that Japan requests.

Did you ever find out that you were on that list of eight?
Yes, of course, it was announced. It was public.

That is, there were 8 sports that Tokyo was interested in.
Well, actually, Tokyo was interested in baseball, softball and karate. And the IOC asked about youth, it was the IOC who proposed surfing. That's why I say: I worked to get the door opened for me and suddenly the door opened, I didn't have to push it, it was the IOC who told Tokyo.

"That's why I say: I worked to get the door opened for me and suddenly the door opened, I didn't have to push it, it was the IOC who told Tokyo"

I think it is because of the work we have done all these years. The IOC said that we needed surfing, youth beach sports, skateboarding, youth urban sports, and sport climbing, youth outdoor sports. A package of five was put together and they were informed in August.

After the Pan American Games, on September 30, it was announced that Tokyo was proposing the five sports. From then until August 2016, a process was opened where first the IOC sports programme commission approved it, the executive committee in March and April approved it, and then it was put to the vote in the session in which you were present. That was the process.

That is, it was a process that, although they went along separate paths, one influenced the other a little and once we both entered the Pan American Games and were voted for the Olympic Games in August, the world began.

As a surfer, as it may happen to me or to anyone, did you love being involved in that world? Did something so strict and so structured shock you?
There were two issues. The first issue is that when I arrived in November 2007, I met a person who I had met in 1995 in Mar del Plata and he remembered me. It was a small meeting of the Olympic Committee and federations. Pérez Miró, who was a guy from the IOC, welcomed me, greeted me and little by little I started to meet people.

Did you make an effort to meet people, even if it was not natural for you, or did it come naturally to you?
Deep down, I have a certain amount of shyness. You go into a place with people you know and that shyness goes away. So the first thing I did when I went in was to look for people I knew and I found one. I went to a place with 200 adults and you were invisible, everyone looked at you but no one saw you. You thought they were greeting you, but in reality they weren't greeting you but the person behind you.

"Deep down, I have a certain amount of shyness"

Did you wear your signature outfit or were you more low profile?
No, what he had was a suit and a bow tie, there was no one with a bow tie, so they started talking about surfing and “the one with the bow tie is the one from surfing”, because it was a new sport that had never appeared in meetings.

That charisma, it must be said, had a lot to do with it.
You know that the founder of the Olympic triathlon, a guy who is no longer with us, at that meeting we went to have a beer at a bar with four or five people, and we stayed chatting, and he told me that first I had to find out who the people on the Olympic committee were, if I didn't know who they were, I was going to waste my time talking to someone who doesn't care about me.

He told me that the three most important things, and the Olympic Committee will never want a sport that does not have these three things: First, a sport that is attractive and adds value to the Olympic movement, not the other way around, it is not that it is in your interest to enter the Games, it has to be in their interest that you come.

Second issue, you have to have a formal, legitimate, transparent, credible organization. There must be national and international federations. It must be legal and it must really exist. Don't come with paper organizations or inventions.

The third is that the leader has to be a credible, trustworthy person who is accepted as an interlocutor. So, I had to gain the trust of the people, for the sport, for the federation and for me personally. The three issues, at a certain moment some are more important, but they are all very important, if I had not been a person accepted by them, or the federation had not been formally established or the sport was not attractive, inclusion would not have been achieved.

The first thing I had to do was convince them that sport added value to them, that they were wrong, that they would be better off surfing inside than surfing outside, that was my job all the time, the second was to make sure that the ISA was well formalized, with things well done, everything was done, but we had to do everything the way they wanted. I had 42 federations and at that time they demanded 75, so it was very far away and the other thing is that there were no waves in the places where the games were, how the hell am I going to go if there are no waves? London has no waves, Beijing has no waves...

"The first thing I had to do was convince them that sport added value to them, that they were wrong, that they would be better off with surfing inside than with surfing outside."

You didn't know the members either, I imagine that was also a goal.
I didn't know anyone... It's very difficult to meet the members, because the members aren't there, they have a big meeting and you don't meet them if you're not part of the elite, you have to be a member, president of an international Olympic federation or president of the Olympic committee and even at that level there are the members of the IOC and below them the international federations and next to them the Olympians.

In other words, you don't get to see the IOC because you run into them. You're not at parties, you're not at dinners, you're not where they're sitting, there are even different colors on the seats.

Did you make a sort of checklist for getting to know them? Or did you set a goal to send letters to so-and-so, so-and-so?
The first thing you do when you arrive in an unknown territory, like the Spanish did when they arrived in America, is to make friends with someone so they can show you the territory, otherwise you will never discover anything.

So the first thing I had was the good fortune to meet a guy called Christophe Duby, who had just been appointed director of sports for the IOC, a young guy who used to skateboard, snowboard, who liked surfing even though he didn't practice it.

He became a charismatic and highly respected sports director, he is the one who has the relationship with all sports, the assistants and the future ones. I established a good relationship of mutual trust, to which I also brought value, I always asked myself what was the added value that surfing would bring, all the time.

I always told him that the Olympic movement, environmentalism, things that were appearing, the open space for everyone without racial, economic, social differences... All of that also made me get to know our sport, I mean I knew those things, but I didn't have them specified for an attack plan.

I started to bring up topics that were valuable to them, and every time a new topic came up we would appear. Surfing has all the important things that they talked about. Suddenly, I was in a meeting six or seven years ago and a member of the Olympic committee, with whom I had spoken for two minutes, came up and said to me: “You are a young sport, what do you think, will there still be television or not?” He was talking to the president of NBC and he was talking to me about it, and I said to him: “Yes, there will still be screens, but I don’t know if it will be in the living room or in your hand. This was seven years ago when smartphones came out. So that guy who heard me, already put me in another category.”

Then, what I did in 2011 was very important: hire Bob Fasulo as an Olympic advisor. He was my guide, my scout. I would go to a place, I didn't know anyone and he would tell me who I had to meet and introduce me. He would arrive, introduce me and leave me, he would leave or sit down and I would have to get someone out of that meeting who was cool with me or interested in giving me his cell phone to chat.

One day I met the chairman of the marketing commission, a Norwegian, in London in 2011. He had organised the Lillehammer winter games, was a very well-known chairman of the Norwegian Olympic Committee and was a member of the IOC. We sat down and I introduced myself to the sport of surfing and he asked me, surfing, like the one in Hawaii? Or like windsurfing in Europe? Over there they call windsurfing surfing. I told him no, no, like the one in Hawaii, and he told me that he had practised it in his youth, that he had gone to study at Stanford in California and when the cold season came in California he would escape to Hawaii. We talked for half an hour instead of 10 minutes.

Now, being in the Olympic museum, after all these years of good vibes, he tells me: “Fernando, I'm not only happy for surfing, I'm happy for you, you are one of the kind of leaders that we need, people who love the sport, who still practice it, he is 80 and skis every day.”

Don't you think it's a little unfair that public relations and those contacts play such a prominent role?
But that's human relations, that's life, that's how you make friends, those who invite you to dinner or on a trip are those who have good vibes. Who do you do business with or become partners with in a company? With someone who you have good vibes with. It's the same thing.

Didn't you find it uncomfortable to force?
I didn't force anything.

But hey, you knew who you had to go talk to.
I knew who was good to talk to...

It didn't hurt you to come across a jerk, that made you want to tell him that he was a jerk and you had to shut your mouth.
I don't hang out with any idiot, if he's an idiot I don't say hello to him. I told this yesterday to an Argentine media outlet, what does surfing contribute to the Olympics? This was my talk. Our sport has an important relationship with the environment, it is practiced in the most democratic field in the world because the sea belongs to everyone, no one can write it down, sell it or divide it up, you can be the son of the richest or poorest person in your country, but in the sea there are no differences, most sports require a club, a membership and money, to surf you only need the water, that won me over and I think it won over the IOC, which fell in love with this surfing thing. They realized the values ​​that we represent of true Olympism, the love for the environment, gender equality, equality in access to water, we have an attractive lifestyle too, who doesn't like being on the beach in a bathing suit?

"I didn't stop being Fernando, nor did I disguise surfing"

The nice thing is that we entered surfing into the Pan American and Olympic Games being who we are. Sometimes in life you have to change, not because you want to but because it suits you. But we don't change. We are who we were when we started and that, for me, is the real victory I achieved. I didn't stop being Fernando, nor did I disguise surfing.

Throughout this process, are you going to tell me that it hasn't happened to you that you woke up one day and said, it bothers me to have to go talk to this crazy person, to force something that suddenly doesn't come naturally?
Never, because if the guy is not interested in you, they just don't pay attention to you. When I met Prince Frederik of Denmark, who is going to be the next king of Denmark, he is married to an Australian, he and his wife surf, and I gave a presentation in Lima in 2013 and I represented Juninho, and it was called “Sports for All,” and it was the first time I gave a presentation in front of 100 members of the Olympic Committee.

They were all sitting down because it was an election year, everyone was eating whatever they had to eat because they had to be next to each other chatting and lobbying each other. They were lobbying for the elections in September, I was lobbying for my sport and, through good vibes and people who liked me and connections, I managed to get them to allow me to do a presentation about surfing with a Peruvian boy, who had received the scholarship and who was one of the best Peruvian surfers and he was a boy from a family that had nothing, the son of fishermen. I brought him, we both talked and people got really excited.

When I finished, I got up and walked around and a guy came up to me talking about surfing. I had no idea who he was. The guy was talking to a friend next to him, Bob (Fasulo) behind me and over there the guy next to him says “your highness”, I say “nice to meet you”, I shake his hand and he walks away. I asked Bob who he was and he said it was Prince Frederik.

When I came back from break, I was no longer presenting, I was one of the ones listening, so you look at where you're going to sit, it's the first thing you do in a meeting, see who's there and where you're going to sit, if you're looking for a girl you sit next to a girl you like, then I see the prince sitting and next to him the empty seat, so I go, I sit next to him and I thought he wasn't going to pay attention to me, so I sit next to him and he tells me that he really liked my presentation, he told me that he surfed, that he had three daughters who all surfed, that his wife surfed.

So, at the moment when I knew he was the prince, I asked him why he didn't surf all the time, and he told me that it's complicated for him, that he surfs when he goes to Australia, it's complicated being the prince (laughs). Those kinds of unforced encounters were what led me to be where I am, because you can't force love or force a friendship, if you push it too hard, it goes away. They know that's how it is, that everyone is interested.

That must have happened to you yourself.
It's happening to me now.

But being a wealthy, influential guy, you must have also failed to notice when people want to get something out of you.
Yes, of course, and when that happens to you, you back off, or you say yes, if we see each other later and in reality we don't, it's normal. Building relationships and building bridges with people who had the power to decide whether surfing was or wasn't Olympic was very important, but then I discovered, as an IOC member told me in London 2011, that only one person matters here: The president. If you don't convince the president, you'll never get in, and if you convince him, you'll get in.

It's like when you go to a country, if you want to make a big deal, you go and talk to the president. In 2017, in Biarritz for the World Games, there was already more visibility, we were already an Olympic sport, the French team came prepared with Jeremy, with Joan Duru, with everyone, the two girls, and Bob calls me, he tells me, we have an email from the royal house of Norway, that the prince wants to be here with his country's team and wants to have lunch with me.

I went, as always, dressed in a flowered shirt, to a room in a very nice hotel facing the sea. There were several gentlemen there and one of them said to me, “highness from Norway,” and well, I sat down with him. It was a pleasant conversation about surfing. The next day, the president of the federation, to whom I had told that I was going to WaveGarden to try the wave, told me that the prince would have loved to go surfing with me. I asked him if he had a way to contact him, and he called him, spoke and told him. At eight in the morning the next day when I was leaving, the prince was there with his security to go surfing. He came to pick me up.

"At eight in the morning the next day when I was leaving, the prince was there with his security to go surfing"

This rigidity that you mentioned earlier about the members, don't you think that there is a system in the Olympic world that is a bit macabre? That there is something that is not good, which is pandering to power?
I don't think that anyone is better than anyone else, but I do think that there are people who have more power than others, it's a reality. Power is taken care of, it is protected, you don't go to a country, you arrive at the government house, you ring the bell and the president opens it, there are a lot of layers, maybe the president receives you, but there are layers to get to the president, first with the doorman, then the secretary, then the receptionist of the ministry, the minister and if it's worth it, they introduce you to the president, but you have to have something valuable, so that the president who has little time, pays you attention.

"Yes, I believe that there are people who have more power than others, it is a reality. Power must be cared for and protected."

Don't you think that there are people who are far removed from sport and end up directing sport in the Olympic movement?
There is everything, there are people who are in the Olympic movement because they have value for the Olympic movement and there are people who are there because they are athletes, the two members of our executive are athletes, Barbara in 2014 was surfing waves here, Chirsty, since we elected her, is Minister of Education, Culture and Youth of  Zimbabwe, the president of the athletes' commission, sits on the 15-member IOC executive committee and oversees the Youth Olympic Games. And I didn't choose her for that, she didn't have any of that before, I chose her because she was a person who liked surfing and wanted to do it.

I didn't ask Barbara Kendall. She found out who I was. We were watching snowboarding on the mountain and we started talking. She told me that if I ever needed a vice president of the Olympic Committee, I should let her know. When I told her there was an opportunity to be elected in 2014, she asked me to explain what I wanted, what business plan I had, my goals, how I planned to achieve them, what my values ​​were, what kind of organization I had, etc. She didn't go. I like her and I'm going.

Turning the page, the decision to accept surfing in Tokyo certainly brought you a lot of challenges, it brought a lot of challenges to the ISA, some of which you mentioned in a recent interview, in which you talk about the IOC not giving you the money you deserve. Can you name some of the challenges that having the sport as an Olympic sport brought you?
And, for example, the first challenge is that we have to have an organization with a lot of committees, checks, balances, transparency, a lot of things that we didn't have before. We had an athletes' commission, which was just a commission, now we have a formal athletes' commission, and the president, who was once elected by the executive committee, the next time is elected by the athletes, that president will be on the executive committee now representing the athletes.

Justine Dupont, a girl who surfs waves of all types and sizes, so for me that was a challenge. Tokyo was not like, “OK, you're in, you're in.” I didn't know how it worked, constant discussions between Tokyo, the Olympic Committee and us, about what the place is like, how they set up, what there is, it's a never-ending thing, all the requirements...

Any that catch your eye or offer work that you can't believe?
The Tokyo Games, the festival, is the best idea, but the most difficult because it has never been done, so there is no experience. A surf festival that lasts eight days, with musicians, with art...

And that is 100% the responsibility of the ISA?
No, it is not the responsibility of the ISA to do it, it is the responsibility of the organizer, but they cannot do it without our support or agreement, so you argue all the time, about everything. It is endless.

Is there tension in that negotiation?
Obviously, as in all human relationships.

Where do you feel you are as a negotiator in this trio between Tokyo-Olympic Committee-ISA?
We have the support of the Olympic Committee, because they believe in the vision of the Olympic festival and they believe in surfing. They don't want us to appear the first time as if we were a beach bar, a chorizo ​​sandwich shop (laughs), but at the same time they don't give us money, I mean, do you want me to go to the gala party and I don't even have money to rent a tuxedo? These are permanent discussions, so we are looking for a balance, and Tokyo as a negotiator wants the benefit of surfing, but spending the least amount of money, because Tokyo's business is to hold the games with the least amount of money, raise more money from sponsors, there is money left over and they use it for whatever they want...

"We have the support of the Olympic Committee, because they believe in the vision of the Olympic festival and they believe in surfing. They don't want us to appear the first time as if we were a beach bar, a chorizo ​​sandwich shop (laughs), but at the same time they don't give us money."

The 100% ISA staff, despite the huge challenge of getting surfing into the Olympic Games, didn't grow that much, right?
Yes, we have brought in people from outside, for example Erik Kramer, he didn't exist before. Subcontractors, let's say, there was no Vero Sports, Vero Communications... Now I have one of the three best law firms in the western US that works for us for free because they are so into us, if I had to pay, I would have spent I don't know how much.

Do you have to make a lot of contracts? How does it work?
No, because I have to review the things I do, I sign contracts with all kinds of people all the time now, organizers, championships, insurance, hiring service providers, everything, I have to review everything.

Can you explain the topic of money, how the distribution of money works at the Olympic level?
It's quite simple, the Olympic Games have income from ticket sales, sponsorships and television and communication rights, those are the three big buckets, of those buckets one part goes to the Olympic committee, another to the organizer and the other part is distributed, half to the national Olympic committees and the other half to the international federations.

From Rio (the 2016 Olympic Games) approximately 550 million dollars were distributed to the 28 Olympic federations and the same amount to the 200 national Olympic committees. This money does not go directly to them, it goes through Olympic solidarity. In other words, half goes to the federations that develop the athletes and the other half to the Olympic committees through Olympic solidarity, meaning you have to ask Olympic solidarity for the funds. The ISA does not receive any funds, none of that.

Of the 550 million, don't you get a single peso?
Nothing.

They reach the 28 permanent federations, right?
Of course. So what happened before the Rio vote was that the 28 permanent federations obtained an agreement from the IOC that they would support the new sports as long as the money was not diluted, because dividing by 28 is not the same as dividing by 33. So that was agreed upon and we were left out. They gave us a little money, something like 120 or 130 thousand dollars per year, which is nothing. It's not enough for anything, think of everything we have to do...

Please tell us what you have to do.
All this that I have told you, lawyers, working constantly with Tokyo, Bob has 10 or 15 communications with Tokyo, he talks all the time, he has just traveled, he traveled three months ago, he is going to travel again.

Is all of that paid for by the ISA? Should it be around $10.000 each?
Some of them pay you, others you pay yourself, it depends on what it is for, but we have clearly not received any benefit. Those who have received it are the national federations, the national federations are receiving it from their Olympic committees.

The benefit is because it qualified and is now an Olympic sport, so I give money to surfers because they are Olympians. Is that right?
Surfing Australia had a million and a half dollars, most of it from the government, to build a high performance centre, and then the Rio vote came and they were given five and a half million. Incredible. All this has changed. Today you have surfers from Argentina who come with money from the Olympic Committee, and Uruguay gets a little, but they get something. There are some in every country.

"Surfing Australia had a million and a half dollars, most of it from the government, to build a high-performance centre, and then the Rio vote came and they were given five and a half million. Incredible."

And the money that they did manage to get, those 120.000 dollars, how did they do it?
It's a strange subject, because they bring new sports because of the power that these new sports have to add value, but they don't help them economically, it's as if they give you the seed, but they don't give you the water or the land, great, I have the seed, but what about the water and the land?

You had to spend a lot of money then, were the ISA's finances affected?
I wouldn't say that the ISA's finances were affected, but when you have less time to find organizers for other championships, it affects you, when you have to dedicate more time per day to Olympic issues, it affects you, when your CEO has to use the time for the Olympic movement, you have less time.

Talking about the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, we already know the format, we already know how to get there, we already know how to compete, what we don't know is, what is that festival like?
It is a festival that will last eight days, starting on Sunday, July 26th. Three of those days are necessary for the surfing competition, meaning there are more days of festival than surfing.

The festival will take place regardless of whether there are waves or not on those days. There will be yoga, organic food, art, musicians, an introduction to the sea, environmentalism, everything that has to do with our culture, with our life.

We have hired, or rather we contacted him and Tokio has hired him and he works for both, an organization called GreenRoom, a festival that 10 years ago had a thousand people and this year attracted 120.000, with music, art, everything about surfing culture, people who understand this.

It's not easy to do something that is successful, Olympic and cool, it's not easy, it's like having a party and making it cool, or going to a wedding and making it good, because if it's bad you go to hell.

"There will be a few stands on the beach, but a lot of people will sit on the sand. We want to preserve that, preserve a credible surf championship atmosphere, not a concrete circus. This (Lima2019) is too much concrete for me."

What can we imagine? A plot of land? How many meters?
Two hectares. Behind the beach, on the beach and a flat area of ​​land where all this is set up, all temporary structures. On the beach there will be a bit of a grandstand, but a lot on the beach, people sit on the sand, we want to preserve that, preserve a credible surf championship atmosphere, not a cement circus. This (Lima2019) for me is too much cement.

Talking about the paradigm shift that has taken place, that now people are looking for you in different environments, that can be perfectly transferred to what has happened with the WSL. What do you think?
Absolutely, the professional tour, first ASP, then WSL, we had a relationship that was not easy, they had no need to give us anything, but now they found that we have access to the most important sporting event in the world, which is very valuable to them.

What value does being related to the Olympic world give them?
To begin with, being on the professional tour of a non-Olympic sport is not the same as being on the professional tour of an Olympic sport. It has a different value, sponsors. Today, surfing is a sport where the WSL goes looking for sponsors and it doesn't look for sponsors for the professional tour of a sport, it looks for sponsors for a professional Olympic sport, it's very different. Then, the other thing that has happened is that even many sports, and hundreds of athletes who do the professional tour, today do it with the help of public funds, that helps the professional tour a lot, that there are more people, more quality, more events.

I think the biggest value they have is that during 2019, the professional tour is a qualifier for the games. To realize the value of it is to look at the two emails they sent when the 365 days to Tokyo were up. The WSL created two statements, both talking about Olympic surfing, one explained all the qualification issues and the other talked about the fight between athletes from each of the three big countries, Australia, Brazil and the US, who have seven or eight athletes and only two get in.

Are you aware that the WSL is aware of this paradigm shift? I mean, is that your conclusion or is it something you read in Sophie Goldschmidt's eyes?
No! Read the WSL statement; they are so excited, what it represents to them and what it means, they are happy. The sport is united, more than ever, that is a dream, because through Olympic surfing an opportunity was given. Look, the example of the ISA with the WSL is an example that has never been so successful in any other sport, they have put us in the Olympic committee as an example of how the relationship with the tour should be.

Well, is your relationship with them good? With the WSL.
I think it's a lot better than it was and it's a lot better than I could have imagined it would be. It's good.

Is it fluid? Do they have to be in constant contact?
All the time.

For what kind of things?
Judging, who will represent their countries, the qualification system, that discussion lasted for about a year, I don't know, so many things. Just think that now in Tokyo half of the judges are the best of the best judges of the CT and the other half are the best of the ISA. The chief judges are ours.

"In Tokyo, half of the judges are the best of the best CT judges and the other half are the best of the ISA. The chief judges are ours."

Was that negotiated or did you mention it without negotiating?
No, it was negotiated, they wanted all their judges, and all their chief judges obviously, the negotiation started with them asking for the 20 (laughs, referring to all the surfer qualification spots for Tokyo 2020).

And how was it?
I prefer not to talk, too many details...

Paris 2024, it seems to me to be a fact, but how confident are you that surfing will be in Paris 2024?
I am certain that Paris is interested in surfing, that it wants it, it has already said so, in fact, the IOC has already voted for it, but now all that is missing is the review of all the sports, of the 33 sports that will be held after Tokyo, and after that review, which has a lot of measures, the IOC decides not only which sport will be included, but which disciplines and which events will be included and with that they will decide in December 2020 whether surfing and skateboarding will be included.

So I don't count on being in, I say that I was asked by Paris and the IOC agreed, but now the executive committee is missing.

Are you a little scared about what might happen in Tokyo because of the effect it might have on Paris?
No no.

So the security level is high.
I have confidence, but I'm not overconfident, it's different. Confident is when you believe in yourself, confidence is when you have faith. Of course I have faith and we do everything right.

In this regard, they were quite conservative in asking for quotas, they asked for only 4 more quotas per gender, why was that?
We asked for more, they gave us four more, because there are limitations, we asked for 36.

And they asked for another discipline?
No, because we already knew that they weren't going to give us Stand Up, which was what we wanted to ask for, and that they weren't prepared to give it to us. We also knew about Longboard. There's talk, it's not like you ask for things and see what happens, there's a fluid dialogue.

Who did you talk to there? Paris or the IOC?
With both, there is a fluid dialogue with both.

What is needed to stay? Because we already know that Paris is doing well.
Having added value, as my friend told me, how are they going to measure it? They have like 40 different ways of measuring the value you added.

What does the paper, the Olympic charter or whatever say today with this 2020 change to achieve the Olympic permanence of surfing?
He doesn't say anything.

So, how are you going to do it? Because you are asking for it.
There are 42 criteria that we know, ratings, audience, tickets sold, sponsors, social media, there are a lot of things and in some of them we will do better than in others, but I think we will do very well and that is why I am confident that the IOC will realize the value that we add and we will do well.

"I am confident that the IOC will realise the value we add and we will do well"

So now the system of adding sports ends up being a vote of the kids and bye, see you later.
Only the vote of the 15 members of the executive committee is missing, there is no session.

There is no longer what happened before, that if one entered, another left.
No, it's been a while since I last did.

And is there a permanent sport that has entered the scene in recent years?
The last to enter were golf and rugby in 2009.

Did others leave when those came in?
No, they had taken them out before, baseball and I don't remember which other one.

What did you think about the fact that no athletes came here and decided to go to the CT with a very good chance of qualifying for Tokyo? Did you hear about five athletes who did not come here?
And yes, that is a personal issue. These are issues that they will discuss with their agents, their representatives, their parents, their partners. I cannot tell you what they do, they had to choose, some chose one thing and others another. NoeMar chose to come and did not medal, his sister chose not to come and was eliminated in the first round, I don't know.

What do you think when the WSL makes such a huge effort for the wave pool? You saw that they said they were going to put two in Paris and in Tokyo they are supposedly building one.
There is no construction of any swimming pool in Tokyo. There are no plans to build a swimming pool in Paris, the pool that was going to be built in Florida was cancelled. I am not giving you an opinion, I am simply giving you facts that you can verify. There is only one wave pool, the Kelly Slater model, which is the one you already know, the one at the Ranch that has been there for a few years.

Well, in Tokyo there was actually a mix-up, they bought a piece of land.
They bought the land, but they are never going to do the construction.

Do you have any idea what that move was?
What, "what was it"?

They wanted to seduce the Olympic committee.
Yes! They wanted the pool, it seemed great to them, but Tokyo didn't want it. Tokyo already said in 2015 that it didn't want it and Paris said the same thing.

The Olympic movement has already made things more flexible and Agenda 2020 says that the Olympic Games can be organised in more than one country at the same time. And they can be organised far from the city where they are held.

But at some point you saw that the pool was a good option.
It seemed like it was a much more important element and I think that over time it stopped being so.

Stop, and you are against the pool?
No! Not at all. If someone builds a pool and says we're going to have a championship there, let's go!

If Paris had told you to do it in the pool, would it have bothered you at all?
No! No, for me the pool doesn't take anything away from sport, it adds another aspect, another way.

"For me, the pool doesn't take anything away from sport, it adds another aspect, another way"

Perfect, speaking of pools and all that, I was going to ask you about the purists, and those who don't want surfing to grow...
I'm not interested. For me, purists... If a guy doesn't want surfing to grow, he's not a purist, he's selfish. You call him a purist, I call him selfish. What I do, I wrote in a comment today, is the love of the sea, the joy it has given me and the desire to share that joy with other people. For me, what Finnegan said, the one who wrote the book that won the Pulitzer Prize, in an article that he thought that Olympic surfing was going to take away the coolness and popularity and mystique of surfing.

That's the same as saying that because you were the only one who ate sirloin steak and now we all eat sirloin steak, saying that sirloin steak isn't good. You're crazy! You didn't eat it because you were the only one who ate sirloin steak, you ate it because you liked it. So, do you surf because you like it or do you surf because it's cool?

"If a guy doesn't want surfing to grow, he's not a purist, he's an egoist."

I don't surf because it's cool, for me coolness is irrelevant, I surf because I like it, because it makes me feel good and I want to share that joy with other people, for me the purists are an invention. I don't know how many there are, how many people are against Olympic surfing?

You didn't read a letter that What Youth, the magazine Kai Neville wrote, sent out a week ago.
Yes, but who does that represent...

Well, they are considered super cool.
Too cool to be cool.

Does this trip not touch your heart?
No! What are these people saying that for? You're crazy!

Let's see, let's imagine it this way, the typical little island that had 20 people and everyone was happy and then it ends up with buildings and 500 people in the water, these are things that have happened.
Look, there were no Olympic Games and all that has already happened. Go to Bali. It's irrelevant. I arrived in California 35 years ago and everything was crowded and 35 years later it's still the same. What has changed? The surf industry made a fortune. To be honest, it's a subject that doesn't interest me, it's like someone getting angry because there are more people who have access to public health. Let them say that quality is going to go down, I don't know, they can think what they want.

Are there any comments you've read out there that have bothered you about this whole issue? Because there are people who are really bothered by it.
No, but it's funny, I've seen comments saying that all I want is to sell more sandals. I sold Reef 14 years ago bro, are you crazy?

Well, you do have surfing companies, right?
But that's irrelevant, I'm a fly in the surfing business, my business is not going to change because of Olympic surfing. Surfing is already the coolest thing it's ever been, look, the industry is in the worst moment it's ever been, it's complicated, many brands were bought by public companies, they went to investment funds, they're not what they used to be. They're not the surfer owners and yet surfing is the coolest thing it's ever been in history.

Yes? Why do you say that?
Because yesterday I had dinner with the captain of the Argentine field hockey team, Olympic, world and Pan American champion, and he's going to win here too. Do you know what other sport he practices? Surfing!

But does that mean it's cool?
Cool, dude, cool is when you're high.

"Cool, dude, cool is when you're high"

For me, Gerry Lopez was cool surfing at Pipeline in the 70s.
For you, and for another it is John John and for others it was Kelly.

I don't know, the hippie era was cool.
Was it? Or were they all drug addicts on heroin, acid... Was that cool?

Well, talking about what is cool or not is very subjective.
That's why. Today in the collective aspirational world of human beings, surfing is up there, it's more popular than it was before. Did you see what Jack Johnson is? You didn't have that before.

Can't you imagine a real apocalyptic world? Where the waves aren't enough for the number of surfers there are...
No, it is regulated. Look at Peru. Look at Peru, it is a wave machine.

No, but it's a bad example, because there are too many waves everywhere. Anyway, California would be a better example, let's say.
But it is regulated, when there is a point with 50, if someone gets into the water they don't catch waves, so you sit on the beach, you relax and within half an hour there will be 30, because 20 surely didn't catch waves either, that's where I get in. That's not going to change because of Olympic surfing, Pablo!

Has the venue for the 2020 World Surfing Games been announced?
No! No, no, no.

Do you have any suggestions from any country?
Five, but I'm not going to tell you which ones.

What will the ISA consider when choosing them?
What we always consider! Who is the best organizer, who gives the best guarantee of success, who is credible, who has the best funding, who has government support, the usual. Access, means, costs, distance to get there, everything.

Why did you repeat so many events in Japan lately?
Because surfing in Japan has exploded, and it's trendy, and they love it. Besides, I want to practice and get to know it in Japan, I'm going to have to organize the most important event in the history of surfing in Japan, I want to understand it. It's logical.

Wasn't it too much?
No.

Because there are teams that suffer from going to Japan.
Yes, and before teams suffered from coming to America. Do you remember 10 years ago how they complained because Latin Americans were the only ones who held events and when we were going to do one in Europe, one in Japan and when in Australia? Not Australia because the Australians don't want to put up the money...

"Surfing in Japan has exploded, and it's trendy, and they love it. Besides, I want to practice and get to know it in Japan, I'm going to have to organize the most important event in the history of surfing in Japan, I want to understand it."

At the super important 2020 World Surfing Games, and the super important 2019 World Surfing Games, you put in place rules that the CTs have to be there. There are nations that don't like that because they will cross paths with the CTs and it will take away their Olympic chances. What was the spirit of that rule?
Those who have a winning mentality and are surfers are going to be happy... Like this guy from El Salvador, do you know what he told me? I love being in Japan, the president of the Olympic Committee of El Salvador was there, he and I. And I say to him, are you going to Japan? And he says, not for now, I look at him and say: “Are you crazy?”, I say to the president, “how are you not going to send him? This guy is going to win you a medal and maybe the gold. If you send him to Japan and he beats Kolohe in a series, which he can never beat, because surfing against those from the CT who are hidden and protected by the fortress of economic impregnability, this is the opportunity, it is democracy, the World Surfing Games is democracy”, do you want to be better than the best? Go and compete with the best!

Regarding your career as a sports manager, don't you think you've gone too far? You've been managing here for 25 years? What do you think?
Pablo, I don't charge money, I don't pressure anyone, I don't limit candidates, I've never done it, when they don't want to elect me, then they don't elect me, or maybe I stop trying to be elected as happened to me with PASA, I got tired, I couldn't and I left.

I could be the president of PASA today if I wanted to. In principle, being here for a long time is not good, but in principle! Unless you are here, you make everything better for everyone. I am grateful that I was here, I am not saying this because I am Fernando Aguerre, but it is not easy to do what I did. I have a multilingual, business, legal, water, organizing, organization, event organizer background. That is my background, I have done it all my life. It is very difficult to find all that for someone who does it for free. It is unusual.

"This is the opportunity, this is democracy, the World Surfing Games is democracy, do you want to be better than the best? Go and compete with the best!"

What's up? Why do you do it for free? Why do you pay for a trip to a certain place with your own money and not with the ISA?
A year ago, ISA started paying my tickets, but I don't get paid. I never had a salary, I never got paid and I don't expect to get one. At this moment, paying tickets seemed fair and could be improved. At first, ISA didn't have any, so I paid them myself. I'm not going to stop traveling because there's no money, but today it's normal, it's fine.

In your heart, how much do you want to continue this? In Paris or in Los Angeles in 2028?
I want to be there, but I don't know if I'll be president, but I want to be there. It's the baby that I worked for all my life.

But it's nice to be president, isn't it?
Look, if you tell me if it's nice to be sitting here today looking at the water, yes it's nice, but do you know the amount of work you have to do? I'm not a guy who organizes a little event a year, on his beach in his country, I have an organization that organizes 6 or 7 world championships in different places and participates in multi-sport games, it's a job, a pain in the ass.

I cannot be the president of this and forget about it. When I work with you, you see how I manage myself. I am still the president, I am still my chief of staff, I am still responsible for everything. I sign the contracts, I sign the ISA tax returns, I look at the financial statements. For me, it is a job, but at this moment I am also putting together a group of leaders on the executive committee who can succeed me. It is essential.

"I want to be there, but I don't know if I'll be president, but I want to be there. It's the baby I worked for all my life."

Well, and in line with what you said today, that maybe it's not so easy to leave because it's not easy to find a person like you, that's what you suggested.
No, I think they will find a group of people who do what I do, who have more than one who have strengths and they will do it, that's fine.

Would it hurt you to leave because perhaps the ISA would be weakened?
If I do a good job, the final evaluation will be how I organized so that there is a good successor, I should not be weakened.

Would it be hard for you to leave?
No.

Do you like to feel important?
I like to do important things, I like to do things that improve the lives of others. I usually wake up and think, what am I going to do today? What am I going to do to make the world's day end better than it began... That's how I think, sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't. I was raised by a humanitarian mother, by a socialist grandfather who had an anarchist father. And on the other hand, I have another branch of the family that is totally entrepreneurial and capitalist. I use my entrepreneurial skills to develop the ISA, so that the ISA is absolutely bulletproof, respected, credible. The only thing I'm missing, the last step, would be to achieve Olympic funding. Once that is achieved, (we will receive) the money from the distribution of the rights that the 28 federations receive. That is a matter of time...

"I like to do important things, I like to do things that improve the lives of others"

What you are also missing is to achieve Olympic permanence in surfing.
They go together, one brings the other.

Do you have a date you have set for yourself to leave?
No, but there are elections in 22.

And what do you think about that date?
It's a nice date, I'm going to be 64 years old.

Are you thinking of leaving in 2022?
No, I don't have any plans to leave at the moment. At one point I thought about leaving in 2012. Sometimes you get tired and don't want to do it anymore, but really at the moment I don't have any plans to leave or stay.

What sacrifices did you make for this?
I'll give you a simpler example, which would be good if you could publish. I told it to all the professional surfers when I met with them a year and a half ago in Hawaii to discuss how the WSL was going to work within the ISA for the Olympic Games. My brother calculated that I have worked more or less 12.000 hours to bring surfing to the Olympic Games, that's a lot of hours. I'm an average surfer, I told them, I've been working 12.000 hours, at six waves per hour, that's 72.000 waves. I, Fernando Aguerre, stopped surfing 72.000 waves so that you could surf in Tokyo, we're going to negotiate in good faith.

"Sometimes you get tired and you don't want to do it anymore, but really right now I have no plans to go or stay."

But I'm sure that wasn't the only thing you sacrificed.
No, I sacrificed time with my family, time with the waves, time to make money, time for my health, a lot of things.

And was there any weight that hurt you from what you missed?
No, but you can't have your cake and eat it, you either have it or eat it.

Sure, but during the time you weren't with your family, for example, did your kids get paid? Did your wife get paid?
No.

Has any marriage failed because of such fanaticism?
I prefer not to talk about such intimate personal matters, I don't think it's relevant to the article, but I think that one actually makes decisions to go out and work whatever for 12 hours and that deprives you of time, but you also do it to get the means to help your family be safer, have a roof over their heads, have food, clothing, good education, good health.

In general personal terms, how are you?
Happy.

Are you a crazy person who wakes up really happy every day?
I am physically healthy, I don't take medicine, I don't take painkillers, I don't take anxiolytics, I hardly drink alcohol, I don't drink black coffee, I don't drink mate, I don't drink tea, I don't drink Coca Cola, I am very calm.

Does your personality or life challenge you in any way? Do you have dark moments?
No, I am healthy. I think that when you are ill, or you get sick, for example, I went through the death of my father, my father died of pneumonia and I got pneumonia. I mean, I think that the things that really disturb you are those that radically change your life, the health or death of your loved ones, emotional disappointments of any kind, some you can fix and others you can't.

You show quite inhuman integrity, because we all have daily problems.
But we all have problems. I got sick recently and I was on antibiotics for two weeks and that's normal.

I was referring to everyday issues.
What are you, Caras magazine, idiot?

How would you like to be remembered?
A practical idealist, a bridge builder, open-hearted and less inquisitive and insistent than I am. That is what I am, my level of performance is often more than what is acceptable to most people, I myself am very demanding.

Do you demand a lot from yourself and sometimes demand the same from others?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no, but my level with me is ball-breaker.

And that has cost you...
If you want to get a 10 on the exam and you get a 9, it really breaks your balls. I think that's part of success. That's my driving force.

And going hand in hand with how well you have done in the Olympic movement, have you been offered positions in the Olympic movement?
Yes.

And do you like that world? Did it seduce you enough to be part of it?
No! They offered me the World Beach Games three years ago and I didn't accept. I can't do any more things, Pablo, life is coming to an end, I have 15 years left like this, and then the slope... I surf every day, I have a six-year-old daughter and I'm 61. I don't believe anyone I tell my age to, they think I'm screwing them, I was born 61 years ago and I behave, think, dress and look like someone younger, but I'm 61, I had back surgery, a serious back accident, I kept surfing, I recovered, I got better, I healed...

"Life is coming to an end, I have 15 years left like this, and then the slope"

What simple things do you enjoy in life today?
Listening to music, playing an instrument, playing with Gina, surfing, laughing my head off without having to drink alcohol, having fun at a party without having to be drunk. I don't need alcohol. Getting to that point is a success for me, most people my age drink 3 whiskeys a night and are committing suicide, I don't want to commit suicide. I want to surf until I'm 100, dude!

Can we say that you lived life to the fullest? Are you satisfied with the life you lived?
I'm happy, I'm satisfied with the life I lived, I know I've made mistakes, I've offended, I've asked for forgiveness, I've learned, I've regretted things I've done. You see people who say that if they had to live again they would do the same thing, no way! If I had to live again I would change so many things that I wouldn't do them the same, but oh well.

Is there any that hurts you badly?
I prefer not to talk about it, but I have them, I have accepted them. I have just finished three years of psychoanalysis, I meditate every day, I eat healthy, I sleep seven or eight hours without taking anything to sleep.

"If I had to live again I would change so many things that I wouldn't do them the same, but oh well."

A colorful commentary talking about your life, the time of Reef in its splendor, with the Reef girls, were they wild and beautiful years or not?
Of course! Pablo, I never hid my madness, I lived it to the fullest, I was the crazy person with 30 necklaces, now I wear one or two, before it was 30. But in all these years the best thing of all was that when I sold Reef, I felt that I had a void in my life, "and now what am I going to do?" (he asked himself). Because I lived as a businessman, I was president of the ISA, but it was an ISA that held a championship every two years, I had an employee.

The best thing of all is meeting all those athletes of 20 or 30 years old in all the championships, that I go into the water with them, that we eat together in the Pan American village and for most of them I am Fernando, the one who brought Olympic surfing, the one who developed the ISA, they don't even know that I was the owner of Reef (laughs). Cool! I was able to reinvent my life. I am in my third life, that means that I also had to reinvent my married life, my family life. And I have a good relationship with my three children of 22 years old, I have a good relationship with my first wife. I have learned more about making peace, the value of peace over war.

It's clear that there are many people in the Olympic world who are inspired by your personality. How do you feel about this?
There are people who are happy to meet me and say, “how nice, how funny.”

And what do you think seduces those people you have?
First of all, I speak from the heart. I am open and warm, as always. I treat people as they treat me and if I make or commit mistakes, I like to be told. What one does not want to hear is what one most needs to hear and I think I continue learning to listen to more of that. The problem is that wisdom is a comb that they give you when you are bald. By the time you are wise, you are already very old.