By John Redmond
Haeundae Beach in Busan will host the 3rd Annual Mayor’s Cup International Surfing Competition on June 24.
As a warm up for the summer season, more than 200 surfers from all over Korea and representatives from the international surfing community will be taking over Haeundae Beach for three days.
The Busan Mayor’s Cup International surfing competition originated three years ago and is a huge fixture on the surfing calendar as it actively encourages surfers and non-surfers to take part in an international event that gets everyone out into the water
For a small entry free, participants will get lunch Saturday and Sunday, fun games, a goodie bag and T-shirt.
There will be music, sponsored booths, photo shoots, learn2surf lessons with the top surfers from Thailand sponsored by Ocean and Earth and weekend-long board rentals and surf clinics sponsored by Songjeong Surf club.
For the first-time ever, there will also be stand up paddle board lessons sponsored by Pine Ocean all of which are open to the public.
This year’s meet will also welcome a team of the top six surfers from Thailand in addition to VIP guest, international CEO of Ocean and Earth (O&E), Paul Munton, who is also the international CEO of Komunity Project.
In addition to officiating at the event he will also be on hand to help select riders for the 2011/12 Korean O&E surf team and launch both O&E and Kommunity Project for the first time in Korea.
Komunity Project, a line of boardbags, leashes and traction, was founded by 10 time Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) world surfing champion, Kelly Slater and is only carried through Ocean and Earth.
On Saturday and Sunday the top sponsored Korean surfers take to the water to go head to head with sponsored international surfers in a new “special class” which is paving the way to a more international meet and allotting points to the top Korean surfers to allow then to surf in competitions abroad.
“Good waves permitting, this event promises to be the ‘must attend’ event of the summer season,” said Cheryl Kim, one of the organizers.
The event is free for spectators as are the clinics.
The Busan Mayor’s Cup International Surfing Competition 2011 is sponsored by the City of Busan, Korea Surfing Association, Subaru Korea and ABC Mart.
For more information check the facebook “Surfing Korea” site or the KSA website or email cherylkim2009@hotmail.com.