PANAJI
Tamil Nadu’s teenage sensations, Kishore Kumar and Kamali Moorthy swept through the top honours in both the men’s and women’s categories -- Groms and Open -- to be crowned as the Men’s and Women’s champions respectively in the 4th edition of Indian Open of Surfing.
After winning titles in their categories (Boy and Girl Groms), they also punched their weight above everyone with their scintillating performances to win the Open Men and Women categories to be crowned as the champions.
The surfing women’s open competition saw 14-year-old Tamil Nadu’s Kamali Moorthy snatching the title from Goan surfer and defending champion Sugar Shanthi Banarse. Kamali who had initially registered for the Surfing Groms 16 & Under Girls category was brave enough to take the chance of competing in the Women’s open category and impressed everyone with her skills and surfing from the start. She scored a total of 12.07 points while runners-up Sugar Banarse earned 10.40 points. Karnataka’s only hope in this category, Sinchana Gowda finished third with 5.93 points.
The day began with the semifinals of the men’s open surf category which saw Tamil Nadu’s teenager Kishore Kumar manoeuvring majestically on waters, thereby advancing to the finals with a highest score of 14.00 in the category and was joined by the home state surfers, Srikanth D (11.66), Surya P (11.0) and Sathish Saravanan (7.93).
From there, Kishore never looked back as the finals of the men’s open surf category were a treat to watch where the young land Kishore competed against more experienced surfers and emerged as a champion with a 15.67 scores in the finals while runner-up Srikanth D earned 12.90 followed by Surya P (9.14).
In the Surfing Groms 16 & Under Boys category with 15.07 points Kishore Kumar was successfully able to retain the title from the last edition. Tamil Nadu’s Tayin Arun & Harish P finished as the runner’s up & the third position with a total of 8.97 & 6.27 points respectively.
