ASP South America is proud to announce that the State of Rio de Janeiro will host the Quiksilver Saquarema Prime presented by Powerade from May 20-25 on the powerful waves at Praia de Itauna. The world’s top surfers will vie for U$ 250,000 in prize money and 6,500 points towards the 2014 ASP Qualification Series Ranking. Only the top ranked 10 surfers will make the cut and qualify for the 2015 Samsung Galaxy ASP World Championship Tour.
“The ASP would like to congratulate the City of Saquarema and the State of Rio de Janeiro via the Department of Sports and Leisure for the confirmation of the fourth consecutive Prime event held in Saquarema,” stated ASP South America Regional Director, Roberto Perdigao. “A Prime event is one of the most important contests on the ASP world calendar and gives an additional opportunity for qualification onto the WCT for South American athletes, especially the surfers from Brazil and Peru that have had excellent results so far in 2014.”
Perdigao emphasized the importance of maintaining the focus of surfing events in Brazil during the month of May.
“Since the Quiksilver Saquarema Prime begins right after the WCT event held in Brazil, many of the elite WCT surfers will remain to compete in the first ASP Prime event of 2014,” said Perdigao. “In addition, every event held in Saquarema to date has been run in excellent conditions and enables the collection of international surfers to really show their array of talent.”
Despite being famous for the location’s natural beauty, the international prestige of the waves at Praia de Itauna continues to attract a diverse spectrum of international athletes. In 2009 and 2010, when the contest was still categorized as an ASP 6-Star event, Brazil took top honors as Neco Padaratz and Willian Cardoso won the contest respectively. However, since becoming a Prime event, Australia has shown its event dominance with Kai Otton winning in 2011, Matt Wilkinson in 2012 and Mitch Coleborn in 2013.
With support from Powerade, four events have been confirmed for the 2014 ASP South America Surf Series. The first event is the ASP 4-Star Rip Curl Pro Stamina from April 16-20 in Mar del Plata, Argentina. The second event will be the Quiksilver Saquarema Prime presented by Powerade from May 20-25 in Saquarema, Brazil. Afterwards, the surfers will face the perpetually challenging conditions in the heavy barrels of El Gringo for the ASP 3-Star Maui and Sons Arica World Star Tour in Chile from July 22-26. And will conclude with the second edition of the ASP 4-Star Mahalo Surf Eco Festival from September 9-14 in Itacare, Brazil.
The results of the 2014 ASP South America Surf Series events will also crown the ASP South America season champion. The ASP South America has implemented a new rule where the event winner will receive 2,000 points despite the difference in ranking points offered in events with varying Star values (3-Star, 4-Star, etc.). The goal of the regional office is to provide added incentive for athletes to compete in events organized by the ASP South America.
