Only 2 Asian surfers left, including Rio Waida who had the opportunity to get tickets to compete in the 2020 Olympics.
Victory is really in front of the eyes, but it seems fate said otherwise, Rio must be very thin to lose with his opponents in the 10th Round of Repenchage. Imagine, so much heat that Rio has passed and he won at the ISA World Surfing Games, and only 4 rounds left the victory turned out that Rio had to accept this bitter truth. Not only Rio must accept this reality, but all supporters of the Indonesian Team must also, of course, accept this reality and feel the deep sadness of course.
If we look at Rio’s performance in every heat during the ISA World Surfing Games is unexpected. Having some tough names like Kanoa Igarashi, Miguel Blanco, Leon Glatzer, Billy Stairmans and several other Rio names gave fresh angles to Surfing Indonesia. Here we are truly shown the progress of Rio’s surfing performance so rapidly. Under the training of the Indonesian team of coaches Rizal Tandjung, Dylan Amar and Arya Subiakto Rio made it to the top 2 surfers in ASIA and ranked 9th out of 127 participating surfers.
A short message delivered Arya as the head of the Indonesian Team said “Thank you for the support of colleagues … sadness can not be unstoppable because the victory is in front of the eyes to get Olympic tickets. We are in mourning but also proud of the achievements of our athletes. which became the byword of various media & athletes from other countries. Of 127 male athletes from 55 countries competing (fighting for 5 seats / 1 seat for each continent) Rio occupies the 9th position, but unfortunately, there are Japanese athletes (representatives from the Asian continent ) whose achievements are above Rio in this match. Hopefully next year’s qualifications we can regain “.
The competition was won by Italo Ferreira from Brazil. In the final round, he met with compatriots Gabriel Medina, Kolohe Andino (USA) and Shun Murakami (JPN).
Source from : pemburuombak.com