Maldives has secured a slot in the Female Opens category of Surfing at the 2026 Asian Games set to be hosted in Japan.
Maldives has secured a slot in the Female Opens category of Surfing at the 2026 Asian Games set to be hosted in Japan.
The Asian Surfing Championship currently ongoing in the Maldives serves as a qualifying stage for this large multisport event, with 12 surfers from both women's and men's open categories battling the waves to qualify for a chance.
Athletes remain given an opportunity to qualify simply by triumphing over each five physiographic Asian regions to emerge in first place. Additionally, countries who rank in the best seven, which will exclude the victors of all five regions also stand a chance to advance into the Asian Games.
Maldives is placed in the South Asian zone alongside Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
The island nation presently has secured a slot at the Asian Games, successfully triumphing over other athletes in the South Asian zone during the women's opens event.
Two local female surfers contested in the Championship this year; Mariyam Rahil Naseem (Aya) and Shaziya Saeed (Shaz). Shaziya's performed in the second round of the tournament while Rahil advanced directly to the third round after closing her first round heat in second place.
Tallying a total of 4.20 points in her battle with three more South Asian female surfers, Rahil placed third in her heat during the third round.
Sri Lankan national, Senuri Madushani who surfed the waves alongside Rahil had managed to score 0.50 points this round while Indian athlete, Kamali Prakash amassed a score of 3.87 in the sixth heat, landing both surfers in fourth place.
Following the decision to include Surfing as a sport in the largest regional multisport tournament, the Asian Games, The Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) together with the Asian Surfing Federation (ASF) enforced new policies for qualifying into the Games in the surfing sport.
Both Federations reached the decision to advance surfers into the Games during the ongoing Asian Surfing Championships and the subsequent Championship slated for 2025, marking its debut as a qualifier stage this year.
A total of 24 countries, inclusive of twelve countries competing in the Asian Championships this year and the next in both female and male events each will stand a chance of securing a slot at the 2026 Asian Games set to be held in Aichi Prefecture's capital city, Nagoya in Japan.
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