Siblings Giorgio and Isabella “Izzy” Gómez, Jefferson and Anderson Tascón and Simón Salazar are the first athletes confirmed for the Colombian national surfing team, the president of the country's federation, Andrés Porras, told DUKE.

The authority indicated that "they were chosen thanks to their performance in international events, the ranking of the Colombian Surf League, and other factors that supported the federation and the technical commission to make the decision," he said and added: "As a Federation we do not intend to take the best Colombian surfer to compete in Punta Rocas, we intend to take the one who performs best in Punta Rocas, because our main event is the Lima 2019 Pan American Games," said Porras.

The rest of the Colombian team will be defined between November 20 and 25 in Punta Rocas, in a process that will analyze the performance of the preselected (yet to be defined) in the same wave in which the event will take place.

Another announcement made by Porras last week was the appointment of Venezuelan Jesús Capote as coach for the Open and Adaptive Surfing teams. “Capote was appointed as coach of the Open team and will accompany Freddy Marimón to the Adaptive World Championship in California,” he said.

Porras added that Fecolsurf has concentrated all technical, administrative and financial efforts on the PASA event because it is the one that provides the most places for Lima 2019.

READ HERE: The qualification criteria for Lima 2019

The 2018 PASA Games will allocate ten spots in total for the Open Surf division at Lima 2019, also to be held in Punta Rocas next year. Two spots per gender will be allocated to the two teams that are ranked among the top two in the country ranking (not counting Peru) and six spots will be allocated to the top six eligible athletes (one per nation).