The Surfing Federation of India (SFI), successfully pulled oﬀ season’s inaugural surfing championships -

Varkala - International Surfing Festival, the first stop of the National Series from April 10th to 13th at Edava

Beach in Varkala, Kerala. This second edition of the festival attracted over 70 surfers, including international

participants, competing across multiple categories.

The event was organized by the Kerala Adventure Tourism Promotion Society (KATPS) in collaboration with

the District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC). Technical support was provided by the Surfing Federation of

India (SFI) and the International Surfing Association (ISA).

The 3-day event saw some scintillating performances from the athletes who really charged the waves and put on some high performance for the very experienced panel of judges headed by Rory Symes from Australia who was quite impressed with the rising talent of Indian surfing.

In the Men’s open category, Kishore Kumar won with 13 points against 11 points scored by his opponent

Ramesh Buddha, the local favorite. In the Women’s Open, Sugar Shanti Banarse claimed the top spot. Harish P won in the Groms 16 & Under Boys category with a score of 13.84 against 7.64.

Team Percy won in the International Aloha Tag Team event with 17.37 points. The festival was aimed to promote surfing as an adventure sport in India and to position the state as one of the country’s premier

surfing destinations.

Film actor and surfer Sudev Nair presented the prizes at the closing ceremony. Also present were Edava

Grama Panchayat President A Balik, DTPC Secretary Satheesh Miranda, KATPS CEO Binu Kuriakose, and SFI representatives Rammohan Paranjape and Nawaz Jabbar.

Surfing Federation of India being an oﬃcially recognized body by MYAS and IOA now has a lot of important goals and objectives this year with the with the Asian Surfing Championships scheduled to be hosted in India later this year and historic qualification for Asian Games in Japan next year.