Indonesia today with an opening ceremony complete with local traditional dancing and a passionate speech by the Regent of Rote, and then the local Rote surfers took to the consistent 2-4 foot reef break waves to compete in the Local Division.
The Honorable Regent of Rote Leonard Haning opened the event with a welcoming speech and the symbolic handing over of a surfboard to one of the women surfers, Nina Jago from Australia. Regent Haning expressed his feelings about the event, stating “I’m proud to welcome you here to this wonderful island, and for the second time we are holding the Rote Open here at Boa Beach. I hope you have a great time and enjoy the competition as well as the beauty of this island and all it’s people have to offer. We thank you for coming here and look forward to seeing you back here every year. And please invite your friends and family to come as well!”
The Rote Open 2010 presented by Billabong is a 6-star prime Coca-Cola Indonesian Surfing Championship surfing event that will run through September 18th and includes 5 categories of competition: International, ISC Open, ISC Master’s, ISC Women’s and Local (Rote). At stake is a prize purse of $20,000 USD, so during the next 4 days over 100 contestants will be battling it out for their share of the loot. A whopping $3,500 awaits the winner of the International division, and $2,750 and 3,500 ISC championship points for the winner of the ISC Open division.
Today 22 local surfers completed 10 heats of surfing to get the roster narrowed down to the best 8 Rote surfers, who will then face each other in two semifinals later in the week on their way to the final showdown.
Tomorrow’s plan is to start off the action at around 8:30 am with the first round of the Coca-Cola ISC Tour Open Division surfers. The waves are expected to be much the same as today, with 2-4 foot waves peeling off the coral reef and giving both the surfers and the spectators some great action.
Check out the ISC website at www.isctour.com and the ISC Facebook site at Indonesian Surfing Championship for periodic updates during the event.
The Rote Open 2010 presented by Billabong is sponsored/supported by the Government of Rote Ndao, Trensa Tours, Bank NTT, Kementrian Pariwisata RI, Visit Indonesia, TransNusa Airlines, Susi Air, Garuda Indonesia, Batavia Air, Nusantara (NAC), Bintang Flores, JayaKarta, BlueDragon, the Coca-Cola ISC Tour, Surfersvillage.com, Media Nusantara Citra, Lines Magazine, SurfTime Magazine, Magic Wave Surf Community Newspaper, TransTV, Trans7, MetroTV, and RCTI.
The Rote Open 2010 is sanctioned by the Coca-Cola Indonesian Surfing Championship Tour.
