Auroville’s, Samai Reboul surfed his way to glory to become the first ever winner of the ‘All Cargo Indian Open of Surfing’. Manikandan from Chennai finished as the runner’s up the championship. Samai walked away with a cash prize on INR 50,000, while Manikandan won INR 25,000 along with their respective winner’s and rRunner’s up trophies. The three-day surfing extravaganza is the first ever surfing championship hosted in Karnataka and was a part of the Karnataka Surfing Festival, promoted by Karnataka tourism.
The championship is sanctioned by the International Surfing Association and is organized under the aegis of the Surfing Federation of India. The Mantra Surf Club in association with Kanara Surfing & Water Sports Promotion Council Surfers put together the inaugural edition of the All Cargo Indian Open of Surfing.
In the Groms Under 16 category, Pondicherry’s Perceval Fayon finished as the winner followed by Sanjay Selvamani & Manikandan M from Tamil Nadu finished in the second and third positions respectively. The Chennai trio of Raghul Govind, Surya P and Ajith Kumar walked away with the first, second and third places in the Juniors (17-22 years) category.
Dharani Selvakumar, Raghul Paneer and Manikandan D from Chennai finished first, second and third respectively in the Seniors (23-28 years) category. Chennai’s Moorthy Megavan finished first in the Masters (29 & above) category while Santosh Moorthy from Mahabalipuram and Pondicherry’s Velu finished third.
Local girl Sinchana D Gowda and Tanvi J finished first and third respectively in the women’s category while Chinamyee Mayya from Udupi finished second. In the men’s stand up paddling category, Chennai’s Sekar Pachai, Murthy Meghavan and Vicky V walked away with the first, second and third places respectively. Local girls Tanvi J and Sinchana D Gowda finished first and third respectively in the women’s standup paddling category, while Chennai’s Vilassini Sundar finished second.
The first, second and third place winners in all categories except for the Open category walked away with cash prizes of INR 25000, INR 15000 & INR 10000 respectively.‘Its been a great experience to be a part of the first ever All Cargo Indian open of Surfing. To win it has been the icing on the cake. It’s great to see that slowly such tournaments are being organized in India and this only strengthens our hope of a strong surfing future in India. I hope we get to see many more international tournaments being organized along India’s coastline in the days to come,” said an elated Samai Reboul after winning the inaugural ‘All Cargo Indian Open of Surfing’.
Earlier in the day local resident at Sasihithlu beach in Mangalore were up for a surprise on Sunday morning. The beach unknown to many in the port city suddenly saw huge traffic and spectators in huge numbers from as early as 7 AM in the morning to witness the semi- finals and finals of Karnataka’s first ever surfing competition, the ‘All Cargo Indian Open of Surfing’.
The closing ceremony saw Bollywood actress Ileana D’Cruz handing over the prize money and trophies to all the winners in the evening, which also included many other musical entertainment programs.
