Look to surfing to give Barbados its next medal at the Olympic Games.
And that medal could be around the neck of a Chelsea – Tuach or Roett – Che Allan or Josh Burke.
“Let’s put it this way,” said president of the Barbados Surfing Association (BSA), Roldano Bellori, “right now in the region, in the Caribbean, we are the strongest one. Of course, to the rest of the world it is a little bit more challenging. But I think we stand a better chance in surfing than in any other sport,” he declared.
The assessment from Bellori comes as the International Surfing Association (ISA) released its criteria for qualification for the Olympic Games. Surfing is making its debut at the 2020 Olympics with spots allocated for 40 board riders from surfing nations around the world.
The ISA and the World Surf League (WSL) have agreed that 18 places at the XXXII Olympics in Tokyo will be reserved for surfers competing on the WSL Championship tour.
Twenty will be determined by the 2019 and 2020 ISA World Surfing Games as well as the 2019 Pan American Games, while two will be reserved for surfers from host nation Japan. The Olympics run from July 24 to August 9. (HLE)
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