Costa Rica’s surfing hero Carlos Munoz eager not to be ‘DNS’ again after

Surprise invite for Carlos Munoz: “Wake up, you’re going to the Olympics”

Heavy rains lashed Costa Rica in late July 2021, causing rivers to overflow and more than 3,000 people to evacuate their homes.

Munoz and his younger brother Alberto were on a surf trip at the time and had been driving all day until a blocked road forced them to make a pit stop.

Sheltering from the elements in a hotel, the brothers’ conversation veered to the Olympic Games, their origins and heroes, until Carlos Munoz fell asleep. An hour later, he was woken by his brother who was shaking him awake to break the exciting news.

“He was like, ‘Man, wake up, wake up, wake up!’,” Munoz said. “’They’re calling you to go to the Olympics’. Last minute somebody didn’t show up, so I was the next in the list. And I say, ‘OK, I take the chance and I am on my way there’.”

As Munoz soon found out, however, that was easier said than done.

While a slot did open up for Munoz after Portugal’s Frederico Morais tested positive for Covid-19 and withdrew from competition, the surfer still needed to find a way to get from Costa Rica’s backcountry to the shores of Japan’s Tsurigasaki Beach with less than 48 hours on the clock.

Flying from Costa Rica to Japan on short notice would be a challenge any day, but Munoz faced an even bigger obstacle as the roads around him were closed due to the recent tropical storm.

“All the roads were closed and then they [federation] call me,” he said. “’OK, Carlos, where are you? We hear that you have a part in the Olympics’. ‘Oh yes, I’m here trapped in this place’.”

Fortunately for Munoz, as soon as his compatriots found out about the prestigious invitation and his plight, they rushed to help.

One friend bought him plane tickets, another brought his passport, while firemen rushed him to the hospital for the Covid-19 test that was mandatory to enter Japan.

Even the country’s then-president, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, pitched in by offering his helicopter.

“Everybody was trying to make me cross over the line and finally, they were like, ‘Oh, we’re going to send you a helicopter. We’re going to send you a fire truck’,” Munoz said.

“I went to the firemen and said, ‘Please, nobody can pass through here’. And the firemen came up with idea like, ‘OK, we’re going to put you on the team and you’re going to go straight to the hospital, get the test’. And then my board – I didn’t have my boards, I didn’t have my passport – so somebody give me the clothes. Somebody bring me the passport. And I made it at 7:30 to the airport.”