Maldives, Aug 22 (PTI) Harish Muthu had to deal with the disappointment of finishing third in men's open category quarterfinals while Kishore Kumar qualified for the last eight stage in the U-18 category of the Asian Surfing Championships here.
Both Muthu and Kishore are the first Indians to reach the quarterfinal stage of the competition, which is the qualifying event for 2026 Asian Games.
Eight Indian surfers in four categories are competing at the event being held at Thulusdhoo here.
Tamil Nadu's Muthu had stiff competition from Indonesia's Joi Satriawan and Japan's Kaisei Adachi who finished first and second respectively in the quarterfinal.
Muthu was third with a score of 6.76, having finished second in Heat 1 of round three with score of 8.43 with two best scores of 5.33 and 3.10 in four waves to qualify for the quarterfinals.
Kishore achieved a score of 14.33, the highest by any surfer in round three. He scored a two waves score of 6.83 and 7.5 to finish on top of Heat 2 of round three, which is also the highest score among all the Indian surfers in the championship so far.
Kishore will be up against Chinese Taipie's John Chan and Maldives' Sayyid Salahuddin in Heat 3 of the quarterfinals on Friday.
“I am proud of my performance in the Championships even though I couldn't make it into the semis. This was a great experience for me to compete amongst the top ranked Asian surfers and I have learned a lot from this competition,” Muthu said. 7/21/2024
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