“Surfing will never make it to the Olympics.” “He was the only one who had the vision to achieve it.” “Who spends more than 12,000 hours of his life doing something just out of passion or joy?” The phrases of famous protagonists of the browse world they happen during The Impossible Wavethe film that portrays “the very long rowing” of 27 years that he made fernando aguerrethe dreamer from Mar del Plata who lost his beloved sport reaching the Olympic Games.
“It was like that, something that was not going to happen. That is why the soul of the film is for people to understand that there are no impossible. The impossible is a kind of ploy to not feel bad for not trying something. Trying implies not achieving it, so what better than not trying so as not to feel bad. Life is that, sometimes it goes well for you and sometimes badly, ”she explained.
“We surfers know it well: when we lose a wave, we paddle back in to look for another. This is life. Because in life there is always another wave and a new opportunity,” he reflects today, at age 65, while he is excited to learn that the film has already been at 13 festivals, winning the best award at three (International Ocean Film Festival, Shanghai Short Film Festival and LA Independent Film Festival) and being nominated in four others.
Now, in addition, she was freed to see the whole world in https://theimpossiblewave.comwith Spanish subtitles, after making a premiere in California with 250 guests, and another in chapadmalalwith 220 others.
“I really like how it turned out, especially because people who are very close to me speak, like my brother, and others who don’t, like Olympic surfers, world champions and leaders. People who realized things about me that I hadn’t even realized. We are all united by the common thread that is love for the waves and for doing things that do not make us happy,” he said.
“I have lived trying that, creating communities, and Olympic surfing is something that makes me feel proud. This is the story of a lifelong love because, for me, the sea saved my life”, admits Aguerre, who prioritizes giving thanks at this time of harvest.
“I have enormous gratitude for the people who helped me. My resilience and persistence were the engine, but the fuel was the support of all the people. Even from people who expected me to be a lunatic, something I even thought… ”, she explains, smiling.
As a kid, Fernando wasn’t that good at sports and focused on other things. And when in adolescence he put aside his introverted profile -as he recounts in the film- to show his current entrepreneurial and exotic essence, already as a DJ and organizer of surf tournaments.
In 1979 he went one step further, founding a surfshop (wing moana) with his brother Santiago and his mother Rule. Then he went to California, created a brand that became worldwide (Reef) and, at the same time, he began with his history as a manager. Elected in 1994, he is about to celebrate 29 years as president of the International Surfing Association.
There began a dream that gained strength when he read that the Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku I had had before, in 1920.”Someone, someday, will take surfing to the Olympics”, predicted the father of modern surfing.
aguerre is defined to be that person. “There was never a master plan, it was always changing, because the people I had to talk to, and convince, from federation leaders to managers of the Olympic movement, kept changing. But the compass always pointed there. Sometimes I did not have time, I dedicated myself to the afternoon, after my work. But I was able to surround myself with capable people, without fear of difficulties and who do not escape in adversity ”, he recounts.
Today the lights fall on him. It seems unusual that a lawyer from Mar del Plata, from a Third World country, and far from the history of others, has achieved what none of the popes of the first surfing world have even dreamed of. “He is crazy, yes, but I never feel more than anyone. It is true that we are not a power nor do we have the tradition of others, but we have other things that make us special”, he reflects.
aguerre He recounts examples of how he overcame obstacles, especially when many looked at him as a freak in the Olympic environment and didn’t even pay attention to him. “I had many rejections. I went to all the IOC meetings, but I was at the foot of the Olympic pyramid. I was looking for a room in the hotels where the leaders stayed and I would appear in the lobby or the bar, to eat, have a beer and thus get closer to chat with them and tell them my dream, ”he said.
And he also explained: “Once a leader got me an invitation to a gala, but I told him ‘no thanks’. I didn’t want a card, I wanted them to invite me. And little by little it happened. When Thomas Bach arrived as president, a door opened”.
Today, after the experience in Tokyo, everyone looks at it differently. “Now they know the value of surfing, the boost he gave to the Olympic movement. They are all happy and they love it because, in Tokyo, it was top 10 in sports and top 5 in social media. They know it to such an extent that not only did they keep it on the calendar for the next two Games, but they also accepted that in the next Olympic event surfing would be the second sport in history to be played in a venue on another continent,” he says.
Exactly a month ago, in The Savior, aguerre enjoyed the second ISA World Cup of the second Olympic cycle, with a record of countries (63) and the presence of the best in the world. “It was exciting, because there were the top surfers, there were incredible waves and we continue to see the growth of the sport, with diversity and gender equality. For example, there was a team from Saudi Arabia for the first time and in Iran the first woman participated, ”she summarized.
The tournament delivered the first Olympic tickets (eight) and had Peru as the team champion. The American qualifiers will leave the Pan American Games that will be held in Chile, starting on October 20.
But Ferdinand does not stop. Now he devised, organized and failed the financing of the IOC so that the less experienced surfers who qualify go during this month to train at teahupoo, where the Olympic competition will take place. Of course, because it will not be done in Paris. He IOC authorized surfing to take place in Tahiti, in the French Polynesia.
An ideal place to take surfing to another level of recognition because if there is a place that represents the popular collective imagination of what this sport is, that is Chopo, as they say. It is a break that is as famous and beautiful as it is challenging and terrifying. “An earthly paradise, the best field where a tournament of this importance can be played. It will be something dreamed of and no one will have any doubts that surfing is here to stay and promote the Olympic movement”. A wave that, in the end, has been possible.
