by Dave Delgado
Guam - Local surfers Fred Mendiola and Cheyne Purcell will hit the waters in New Caledonia for a chance to bring home some medals for Team Guam. Purcell will compete in the men's short board while Mendiola will represent Guam in the long board category. Coach Andy Lee says the two have a very good shot at medaling because of their strict work ethic.
Coach Andy Lee said, "Both our surfers Fred Mendiola and Cheyne Purcell they are both very versatile surfers. They have got years of experience competing on Guam as well as overseas and their conditioning is really strong. They are what I would say is at the world-class level. We have both take a trip to Fiji recently with some pretty big conditions and they really proved themselves in the conditions there. Developmentally they are very easy to work with and they know exactly what they need to do and how they need to train, nutritionally how they need to take care of themselves. So at this level they are very easy to train with."
Purcell has been active making sure he has spent enough time in the water getting in his practice runs with two trips to Fiji and a trip to Hawaii in preparation to the games. This is the first time in all his years of competing that he will be representing the island and is excited to get out there and do his thing.
Purcell told KUAM Sports, "Super excited to be going to New Caledonia it's going to be fun, the waves are supposed to be real good down there so that will be cool. It's the first time I will be representing Guam to go off island and compete like this so that's going to be real awesome. I just can' wait man; I started surfing here on Guam when I was 4 years old at Talofofo Bay. I competed in a lot of events, all the local events in the last 10 years here. I did a contest in Hawaii when I was a kid, in Bali when I was a teenager, just trying to stay in the water as much as possible."
Veteran surfer Fred Mendiola has over 30 years of experience in the water and earned his way to this year's games by accumulating 29 points in 3 three qualifying events held locally. Mendiola has surfed in Hawaii, California, Japan and Fiji putting in his share of work through out all these years leading up to the Pacific Games. Mendiola says that not knowing the surf location will be the most challenging part of the competition.
He said, "I think for sure it will acclimating ourselves to a spot that we only really seen on YouTube and stories we've heard from traveling surfers or some locals from New Caledonia that have passed on some information. So we are going to try and get in there a few days earlier to have that kind of fell on how the waves break there. As Cheyne said there are some surf spots, like in Fiji that we were trying to surf that is supposedly similar and Fiji is easier for us to get to from Guam.
"Like Cheyne said, we're fortunate that this particular season we've had more waves than in other years so we're able to surf a little bit more together."
