Olympics-Surfing's Olympic ringmaster Aguerre readies for the next wave

By Lincoln Feast

TEAHUPO’O, Tahiti, July 26 (Reuters) - Fernando Aguerre says that when he was first elected president of the International Surfing Association in 1994, the organisation consisted of a cardboard box and a cheque.

Thirty years on, the Argentine is now making preparations to pass the torch to a new leader, having built the ISA into a body representing 116 countries and achieving the improbable goal of taking surfing to the Olympics.

“When I got (elected) it was literally a cardboard box like this, with papers and a $5,000 cheque, so I was like, ‘I can’t go wrong, because … I’m already at ground zero!’” Aguerre told Reuters.

Having sold the footwear company he set up with his brother for a sum reported to be in the region of $100 million, Aguerre works pro bono.

“I don’t make money - I’m free, so I’m a good deal,” he laughed when asked about stepping down.

“I pushed for a new bylaw in the constitution that will preclude me from running after 2026, so 2026 will be my last - in the current constitution I won’t be able to run after that.

“Two or three” succession plans are in place but Aguerre hopes to retain some kind of role.

“I think it’s better I take more of a head advisor or, like I like to call myself, head cheerleader,” he added.

“I enjoy sitting down with people like this, kind of passing the spiritual and cultural torch of the sport.

“So I might make it to (the) Brisbane (Olympics), maybe. Maybe the sharks will take me before that.”

SHIRTS AND SHAKAS

Often sporting a Hawaiian shirt, a straw hat or a bow tie and sometimes all three, the irrepressible 66-year-old still surfs most days.

In Tahiti, a couple of days before the Olympics opened, he packed his family into a van and headed to a nearby black sand beach to catch a few waves with his son and a few others.

Aguerra rasps out greetings in various languages and throws shakas - the Hawaiian hand gesture - at surfers, locals and other officials at the charming village that is the venue for surfing’s second Olympics.

Getting surfing into the Games was not only Aguerre’s goal but also that of Duke Kahanamoku, the Hawaiian who won swimming gold medals in the 1912 and 1920 Olympics and introduced surfing to the rest of the world.

“This is my gold medal,” Aguerre said. “Seeing happiness around, fulfilling the dream of Duke Kahanamoku, 100-something years ago - an Olympian, a gold medallist, a surfer that swum faster than anybody.

“He hoped this would happen one day - of course it didn’t happen for 100 years.”

Aguerre found little appetite for surfing at the Games until Thomas Bach took the reins at the International Olympic Committee with a mandate to modernise the movement.

Surfing’s debut at Tokyo was delayed a year due to the COVID pandemic but was considered a sporting and ratings success, bringing the Olympics to a new, younger audience and showcasing the surfing lifestyle to billions.

That helped ensure its inclusion at the Paris Games, as well as Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032.

It was not an easy road, however.

“If I look, in retrospect, I think it took some ignorance on my side of understanding how complicated the process was,” he recalled.

“If they really tell how difficult the road will be, you might not go, you might not even get out of the house to go there. I think my ignorance was in many ways a blessing.”

Aguerre, who grew up in Argentina’s Mar de Plata where he organised DJ concerts and surfing contests, moved to California in 1984.

That was the year Los Angeles last hosted the Games, and Aguerre cannot wait to see Olympic surfing at his adopted home in 2028.

“In California a few years ago, the parliamentary body called the assembly passed a law declaring surfing the official sport of California,” he said.

“It’s not baseball, it’s not skateboarding, it’s surfing. So it’s so appropriate that surfing will be in the Games there.”