Costa Rica will host the World Rafting Tournament

More than 35 countries will congregate at Pacuare River in the most important rafting event worldwide. It will be the second time Costa Rica holds a World Rafting Tournament, after organizing it in 1998

Costa Rica will host the World Rafting Tournament in 2011, in the waters of the Pacuare River in Turrialba.

The event will be held from the 5th to the 10th of October next year It will be the 9th edition of the World Rafting Tournament since the creation of the International Rafting Federation (IRF, for its acronym in English) in 1997..

The country was chosen to host the most important event in this daring discipline over Italy and Australia, the other two major candidates.

The country will also use the occasion to commemorate a similar activity organized in Reventazon and Pacuare rivers 20 years ago in 1991.

At the time world rafting tournaments had a festive connotation, because the IRF as such was not yet created, explained Rafael Gallo, president of the IRF and organizer of the event in Costa Rica

For this new World Tournament we anticipate at least 35 countries, the same number of participating countries present in Bosnia 2009.

Action.

Rafting competitions consist of 4 disciplines both for men and women According the organization plans, three of them, Time Trial, Head-to-Head (H2H) Sprint, and Slalom will be held in a 500 to a 700 meter upstream section of the river, at the height of the town of Cabeza de Buey.

The last discipline, which is the most important and determining, is the downstream discipline, which is a trek of about 20 kilometers from the town of Tres Equis to Siquirres During the announcement, which came yesterday in the Costa Rican Tourism Institute (ICT), Gallo said that Costa Rica was chosen due to “the fame of its habitats, the quality of its water, access to sport adventure and the quality of its rivers for rafting.”

The Pacuare River sections that will be used are Class IV and V, which are classified as "professional."

Tourism Minister Carlos Ricardo Benavides said the activity will help to "promote geographical areas with great potential and natural assets such as Turrialba, and it will also highlight" Costa Rican nature and its passion for promoting healthy activities, such as adventure sports. "

It was also announced that next Wednesday, in the same area, a type of Pre World Tournament will be held, so that foreign teams and even the organization itself can try out the routes for 2011.

Six countries will be present: Venezuela, Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, United States, Brazil and Costa Rica.