GUIDANCE FOR DEFINING STRATEGIES IN SURF COMPETITION João Fábio Isidorio Barreto, Irapajy da Silva Caetano, Thiago Rogel Santos Ferreira

Abstract

Surfing, in general, has been growing in Brazil, as it's seen in the professional scenario. Since 1960, Brazil hosts many Surf competitions.  As the years passes by, the structures of these competitions have become more developed, as the number of competitors increased as well. The technical level of Brazilian surfers has been similar to the foreigner athletes, as the number of Brazilian competitors grows significantly in international competitions, many relevant championships were conquered, from the World Junior Championship, to the most important one, the World Surf League Championship (WSL), won twice by the Brazilian surfers Gabriel Medina (2014) and Adriano de Souza (2015). For an athlete become successful in each stage and win titles, a number of factors are required as physical and technical aspects, till tacticknowledge and strategy development. The purpose of this study is to identify if there are strategies in Surf that are used by coaches, and which factors defines these strategies. To achieve this subject, a qualitative quiz was made to measure key points on the tactic development by the coaches, and verify the existence of these certainstrategies. This quiz was applied in 11 coaches, from both genders. And from theresults, for the preparation of strategy and tactics, the coach must worry about some key points, which begins with physical conditions of the athlete, maneuver's reports,knowledge about the opponent and the judging criteria, till analyze the sea conditions. These are the subjects that will be discussed during this study, proposingto answer them, to be a reference material to future researches with the purpose to improve the knowledge for athletes and coaches of a sport that has been growing in Brazil, but with a lack of published material by the academic literature.