Even with a stage still to be confirmed in the Latin circuit, Ecuadorian Dominic Mimi Barona secured herself today among the top two in the ALAS ranking and therefore guaranteed a place for Ecuador in the Lima 2019 Pan American Games.

Barona managed to get into the quarterfinals of the Peñascal Pro, a stage supervised by ALAS and the WSL, and with this she guaranteed herself 1068 points, reaching a minimum mark of 4068, which can be surpassed by either Karol Ribeiro from Brazil or Natalia Escobar from Chile, but not by both of them since they will face each other tomorrow in the quarterfinals.

On the other hand, if Barona were to win the Peñascal stage, she would also be guaranteed another Latin surfing champion title.

Thus, the Brazilian and the Chilean are left fighting for the other spot.

It is important to note that the hierarchy criterion establishes that in the case of qualifiers from the same country by different means, the ISA World Surfing Games 2018 (which already took place in Japan), Pan American Surfing Games (which take place in Punta Rocas in December) and ALAS come first.

This means that it could happen, that it is “mathematically possible,” that an Ecuadorian is placed in the top 6 of eligible athletes in the PASA Games and that the Ecuadorian who travels to Lima 2019 is not Mimi Barona, something that “realistically” seems unlikely.

The other scenario is that Ecuador is among the first two places in the team ranking at the Pan American Surfing Games and thus opens up two spots per gender for shortboards.

What is an undeniable fact is that an Ecuadorian will surely be in Lima 2019.

Related reading: The qualifying criteria for the Lima 2019 surfing event

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