Special coverage presented by Motorola - Subaru - Unacem - Monster - Vissla - Cover photo: ISA/Rommel Gonzalez 

A surfing festival will be held between November 15 and 20 with the Punta Rocas Open Pro. It will mark the return of an international WSL event to Peru after more than three years but with three divisions: Pro men and women, Pro Junior men and women and Longboard men and women.

Punta Rocas is one of the most traditional waves of competitive surfing worldwide, having hosted events that brought together the best in the world since 1965.

1: General characteristics

As its name suggests, Punta Rocas is a triangular-shaped point of stones stuck in the sea located in the Punta Negra district, 50 kilometers south of the Peruvian capital, Lima.

On this bottom and receiving swells from the south and southwest, perfect right and left waves break. When the sea is rough, they mostly break right waves.

It is extremely durable, supporting virtually any size, from half to 20 meters.

2: The most traditional in international championships in Peru

In 1965, Punta Rocas saw the consecration of the first Peruvian world champion, the second in history according to the International Surfing Association. In waves of six to 10 feet, Felipe Pomar won the final, leaving Nat Young from Australia in second place and Hawaiian Paul Strauch in third. George Downing, Fred Hemming and Ken Adler were also in the final.

During the sixties Punta Rocas also hosted several other international events that became a tradition for the best in the world when there was no circuit.

Related note: Felipe Pomar: “If the first world champion was Peruvian, saying that he was Australian is taking away something that belongs to Peru”

It experienced a period of tranquility in the seventies and eighties with the guerrillas in Latin America, but in the nineties it became popular again as a stage for receiving several of the best in the world as the venue for a series of QS tournaments.

Then, in 2006 it hosted the Pan American Championship and in 2008 the ISA World Masters Championship.

In 2014, on the occasion of the ISA's 50th anniversary, the World Surfing Games were held there, which saw local Analí Gómez becoming champion, and in 2019 she received the huge impact of the Pan American Games that changed her forever.

Finally, in recent years some ALAS Pro Tour events have been held there.

3: Lima 2019

Lima 2019 represented a giant step towards inclusion in the Olympic movement. As the venue for the Pan American Games, a high-performance centre was built and those sandy streets and an improvised and already old amphitheatre were replaced by the most modern facilities possible, creating what is surely the largest and most complete training place for a surfer.

The CAR has a swimming pool, skate parks, gyms, rooms to stay in and spaces to watch and judge the waves.

4: Compete in Punta Rocas

The double-edged sword at Punta Rocas is waiting a long time for the wave of the series and it either doesn't come or it turns out to be a sweeper, or with a lot of shoulder and not much wall. Many competitors choose to wait for the intermediate wave further down, which tends to bend and have more stopped sections.

On short days, lefts, which are often overlooked, end up being key to advancing series. Left-handers such as Lucca Mesinas, Noe Mar McGonagle and Jhony Corzo have been able to take advantage of their backside attack using this strategy.

Because it is a strong wave, judges tend to reward power surfing and good fundamentals over anything else. You can see some modern maneuvers at the end of the wave.

5: Every now and then, throw out a tube 

It is one of the waves with the most reputation for being "fat" or "pig" as the Peruvians call it. But with the right direction and tide, Punta Rocas can have some tube sections. There have been very few tubes of note seen in the wave, but the photo above gives room for doubt.