A CANADIAN AND FIRST DOUBLE SHORTBOARD CHAMPION QUALIFIED FOR PARIS 2024

Peruvian Lucca Mesinas won gold and Canadian Sanoa Dempfle-Olin won tickets to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Lucca Mesinas of Peru and Tatiana Weston Webb of Brazil won gold in the shortboard surfing competitions at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games. In addition to the medal, Mesinas assured her presence at Paris 2024, which will be held in Teahupoo, in French Polynesia, while the Canadian Sanoa Dempfle-Olin, who won silver, found herself with the Olympic quota because the South American was already classified.

On the men’s side, Mesinas scored 13.16, which was enough to surpass Venezuela’s Francisco Bellorin, who scored 9.10. In third place is the other Peruvian, Miguel Tudela, with 8.57.

“I feel happy. More than anything for my country’s medal, which is the most important thing with the ranking. It’s incredible. “I’m happy to have this place, because I want to participate in the Olympics , I want to represent Peru and realize the dream of winning a medal for Peru in the Olympics,” said gold medal winner Mesinas, expressing his happiness to have a place in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and to be able to represent Peru.

“We still have the desire to continue surfing and reach the quota, but now we are going to Puerto Rico to qualify for the Venezuelan Olympic Games,” said Francisco Bellorin, vice-champion of the competition and medalist of money, admitting that he still had the desire and that he would try to qualify for the qualifying tournaments in Puerto Rico.

The women’s shortboard category was won by Brazilian surfer Tatiana Weston Webb, a newbie to the competition. She surpassed Canadian Sanoa Dempfle-Olin, who is also a debutant at the Pan American Games and who won the place in Paris because the South American had previously secured her place in Paris. Costa Rican Lielani McGonagle occupies third place.

The Brazilian surfer made his comeback with two minutes to go and scored 12.33 points, which was enough to surpass Canadian Dempfle-Olin, who reached 10.13 points. Costa Rican McGonagle scored 4.20 points in the semi-final.

“It was a very big opportunity for me. It’s a great achievement to win the Pan American Games here in Punta de Lobos, where the waves are very similar to where I trained. An incredible experience, I’m very happy to be here and to have secured a place for the Olympics,” said Weston Webb at the end of the test.

By Bruno Peterson and Diego Vásquez