Surfing is a sport that has been competed in the most prestigious grand event in the world, the Olympics. On August 3, 2016, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that Surfing would be competed in the Olympics and for the first time in history to be held at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The parent of the Surfing Sports Branch in Indonesia, namely the Executive Board of the Indonesian Wave Surfing Association (PB.PSOI) realizes the importance of structured and sustainable athlete development. A league is a solution to the needs of athletes to compete.

“Now Surfing is an Olympic sport, and is included in Asian multi-sport events such as the Asian Beach Games, South East Asian Games and others. The Indonesian Surfing sport has the potential to contribute to the pride of the country and the nation through the achievements of its surfers,” explained PB.PSOI General Chair Arya Subyakto.

It’s called the Indonesian Surfing League (LSI), the first Surfing league in Indonesia, and even Asia. Several wave surfing clubs in Indonesia will compete at LSI. The participants are male and female surfers who compete in the Push-in division U-10, U-16 (there is also an Open for boys and girls), and Masters for surfers over 35 years old.

“The key to success is to provide surfers with experience or competitive flying hours,” explained Arya, seeing the importance of competitive experience to make surfers smart in competing in addition to both physical and technical terms.

Although relatively new, LSI is related to Sport Industry and Sport Tourism which are two of the three themes of the 2020 National Sports Day (Haornas) proclaimed by the Minister of Youth and Sports in addition to Sport Science. LSI has received financial support from sponsors, namely Quiksilver/ Billabong and Rip Curl which encourage the development of the Indonesian Wave Surfing community.

Meanwhile, in terms of Sport Tourism, LSI will invite tourists to attend. The reason is, some of the competing clubs come from various places, the participating clubs include Kuta, Legian, Pererenan. Canggu, Bingin, Medewi, Sanur, Uluwatu, Lembongan, Sukabumi, Batu Karas, West Sumbawa, Mandalika, Senggigi, and Lakey Peak.

The use of the latest technology is also carried out on LSI. The Asian Surfing Cooperative (ASC) supports managing LSI with LiveHeats and its features. In addition to building a database program, the LiveHeats feature helps provide guidelines for managing Wave Surfing clubs, creating and managing memberships through the system, competitions with a scoring system, and ranking of surfers, as well as their clubs.

It is hoped that LSI can give birth to surfers who also step up to the World Surfing League and then enter the world’s top 10 so as to secure Olympic tickets.

Source: http://gerakita.com/