Aritz Aranburu | 10 things you should know about this great professional surfer
Aritz Aramburu: ambition, illusion, work, and gratitude. These are some of the characteristics that accompany one of the best European surfers of the 21st century, the perfect ambassador of Spain to the rest of the world.
In addition to being a surfer, Aritz has qualities, tastes and interests that you may not be aware of yet. Do you think you know everything about this passionate athlete? Here we leave you the details about Aritz Aramburu that will undoubtedly be of interest to you. Don't miss them!
1. Discover the beginnings of this great Spanish surfer. Where does Aritz Aranburu come from?
Aritz Aramburu comes from a family of fishermen and people who belong to and love the sea. He was born in Zarautz in 1985 and his life has been completely linked to salt water and the waves that form on the coast of his city. It is therefore not surprising that Zarautz is his favorite beach. It is the one that has seen him grow."You don't have to travel so much to find good waves," says the athlete. At the age of 7 he got on his first board to surf a wave that has not yet come to an end. Aritz has become a benchmark for national surfing, has made his followers vibrate, has conveyed an exemplary philosophy of life and has mobilized so many people that he has filled buses with fans who have followed him to his championships, or has gathered to a crowd that has gathered to see it through a giant screen that emitted the waves of Aritz from Tahiti.
Aritz, as well as being an exceptional person in the water, is also out of it. Determination is a quality that carries by flag. Whenever you've set a goal, you've visualized it, you've visualized yourself doing it, and you've gone after it with all of your being. On many occasions, he has also confessed to adding this characteristic of his personality, with another: extreme competitiveness. The surfer doesn't like losing even marbles. Enjoy contact sports like boxing, because someone has to win. And to win you have to fight!
Aritz was nicknamed by those close to him as Pottoka (ponny in Basque) or Power Txiki, names that came from the power in his strong, muscular legs that he had had since he was little.
Although Aranburu's life became a torrent of flattery, media, brands interested in him, awards and cameras years ago, his humble, pleasant, discreet and educated personality has not been affected. Which shows that the athlete has a very well furnished head and knows how to identify what really matters.
2. What does Aritz understand by happiness?
Thanks to our research and the follow-up we have done on the athlete's career, we can affirm that the description of happiness for Aritz is something like waking up one morning feeling the sea nearby, approaching the shore early in the morning with his friends, see that there are very good waves and not too many people surfing and spend the day there, putting his feet on the board and feeling part of the sea. A good post-workout dinner with a beer to end the day and go to bed knowing that the next day will have a similar structure to the one you just experienced.
“Having a swimsuit, a board and a friend to be able to share some waves is more than enough for me”, says Artiz. How good does it sound? Aritz's life revolves around surfing, which is not limited only to practicing this sport, but also leads you to think that you live day after day thanking the sea for the waves it offers you and knowing how to take advantage of them. Surfing is what keeps Aranburu alive, it is what moves him.
3. What does Aritz Aranburu enjoy the most about surfing?
As usual, Aritz's favorite maneuver is the tube. He assures that he could go around the world looking for them. Feeling how the water envelops you and covers you at times, until you reach the point where there is only you, and tons of crystalline water around you that completely separate you from the world, from the outside, it must be a unique sensation and with the that probably every surfer dreams of.
The surfer stands out for his intelligence when he affirms that, from the experience of competing, collaborating or simply surfing, he also takes previous experience, that of traveling to the prize, that of meeting local people from anywhere to which he goes, to immerse himself and become infected with the culture of all the places he visits. To feel part of them. Try to avoid nerves, stress and fear of not being enough or having to deal with frustration, to live each stage of your life one hundred percent.
4. Who does Aritz Aranburu admire above all else?
Aritz's favorite surfer of all time is Kelly Slater, she was also able to beat him twice out of the 4 they have faced; one in Teahupoo (Tahiti) and another in Supertubos (Portugal).
However, what lasts in the memory of Aranburu is the feeling of gratitude that she felt when she knew that she was going to face him. It was something he had been waiting for all his life and he knew he had to do his best, take advantage of the moment and not think negatively. Squeeze the experience.
“I also have a lot of respect for Tom Curren and Tom Carroll. They are over fifty years old and when they talk about surfing they get excited like eight-year-olds who are freaking out with their first waves”, affirms the surfer.
5. Discover the first steps of Aritz Aranburu in the world of surfing!
Today we affirm that he is the first Spaniard (and the only one today) to qualify for the exclusive Championship Tour circuit of the World Surf League (WSL).
Aritz's life as a surfer began when “Gallo”, a blind professional surfer from Zarautz beach began training him. Every day, after class, the Guipuzcoan went to the beach with his board to spend the whole afternoon training at Gallo's school. After a while he began to sign up for small local competitions, in which he normally fought against surfers older than him, since there were few of his category. His father was in charge of taking him to compete in Las Landes, in what was then the best championship for small surfers in Europe, the Quik Pro-Junior.
At the age of 14, he won it, and Quiksilver offered him the chance to travel around the world meeting the best surfers of the brand and learning from them, however, it was in 2002 when he began to rub shoulders with the best surfers in Europe .
6. This was the takeoff of Aritz Aranburu in the world of surfing. Do not miss it!
Another important year in Aritz's career was 2007, not only because he won the European Champion title, but also because, at only 22 years old, he managed to qualify for the Championship Tour, a true milestone in his career and in the history of national surfing, but an ankle and knee injury forced him to lose his place on the tour.
However, the WSL granted him the injury wildcard which allowed him to re-enlist the following year. After a few years competing in the WSL Qualifying Series qualifying circuit, the Gipuzkoan achieved reclassification for the Championship Tour in 2014 after signing an epic season.
From here on, the achievements of the Gipuzkoan surfer are counted by the spoonful. In addition to being remembered as the first Spanish athlete who managed to qualify for the exclusive WSL Championship Tour circuit, he is also remembered for closing out the best 34 best surfers in the world.
A milestone that, today, no other Spanish surfer has achieved. Without forgetting that Aranburu twice beat eleven-time world champion Kelly Slater.
His great merits in competition as the first national athlete to reach the elite of professional world surfing have awarded him a star on the walk of fame on the Cantabrian beach of Somo.
“It is impossible to achieve any goal if you don't dream of it” - Aritz Aranburu.
8. He was the founder of the Shelter Surf Camp in 2016.
What is Shelter Surf Camp? The idea that gave rise to this project was born in 2012, with the collaboration of the NGO Kind Surf and Almudena Fernández, the top model who was Aritz's girlfriend and with whom he had a 6-year relationship.
The project took the form of a surf school, located in Zarautz and which saw the light of day in 2016. This initiative is motivated by the illusion of sharing the passion for surfing. Specifically, due to the illusion of trusting that surfing could help children who were at risk of social exclusion, either because of their family situation, or because of some physical disability.
Finally, Shelter is an academy to teach surfing, which has the Kind Surf program, 100% focused on carrying out other social activities, such as Emakume Surflari, which are days of technical training with promise.
Despite being a private company, the main characteristic of Shelter is the strong social aspect that they carry as their flag. They organize talks, conferences, etc. The team is made up of Ane Cano, who is the director of the center, also Indar Unanue, who is a professional surfer, and many others who form a powerful team in the development of the project. This center is open all year round, that's how we differ from the others.
In addition, Shelter is also part of the International Surf Therapy Organization, an organization that houses associations from all over the world that strives for surfing to be considered of officially as therapy for people with depression, anxiety or for people who are very stressed at work.
Aritz Aranburu places the training and training at Shelter Surf Camp in the hands of Diego Martínez, in which he also participates; and they take them both to surf, and to live together, like the Quik Pro-France, where they can experience a surfing championship among the best in the world and meet some of them.
"Thanks to surfing we can help children at risk of social exclusion" - Aritz Aranburu.
Surprising, but Aritz is also a hotelier. For four years he has kept the Shelter Surf Bar open, which has also had a fairly powerful social program.
In fact, Shelter's social activities were financed with the income from this venue. They also participated through the establishment in initiatives such as removing plastic from the seas, using sustainable materials on the premises.
Although now Shelter Surf Bar has had to close its door, the surfer has opened a window, creating an Akaula burger joint, which will function as a synonym for Shelter Surf Bar.
9. Aritz Aranburo participates in many other social projects:
Zarautz Pro-4 Teens
In 2016 Aritz and his team organized es Zarautz Pro4 Teens, a surfing championship for Spanish boys and girls under 14 years of age to offer them the chance to enjoy surfing, and to show the best surfers what life would be like as a surfer. professional.
COVID friendly
On the other hand, due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19, Aritz launched an initiative to reward the work that people who are on the front lines of Covid-19 are doing, giving away a class at Shelter Surf for each sale made in your online store for two weeks.
10. Aritz Aranburu had his own television series!
Have you heard of #GoAritz yet? The Goaritz show was a television program created in 2016 in which the protagonist, Aritz Aranburu, shared his experience with viewers during his participation in the World Championship circuit.
Aritz also had his own YouTube channel, called ARITZARAMBURU, in which he posted his experiences from each trip, thus sharing a bit of what those of us who were not physically with him could not see.
More curiosities: 2021 Olympic Games?
Aritz rows determinedly towards the Tokyo Olympics. The Basque Team athlete wants to continue writing pages in history and become the first Spanish surfer to manage to go to the Olympic Games.
Although first comes the World Cup in El Salvador, in which the best surfers from each country will fight for the world title and to win one of the 12 places left for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
"When I started surfing I never thought surfing could be Olympic. After so many years competing in different circuits, having the Games put before you is something very attractive. Very important for this sport," says the athlete.
What is Aritz Aranburu's Palmares?
2019
- Champion of the Rip Curl Santa Marina Challenge in Santa Marina, Loredo (Cantabria)
2018
- Runner-up of Pro Santa Cruz in Praia da Fisica, Santa Cruz (Portugal)
- Runner-up of the Punta Galea Challenge in La Galea, Getxo (Bizkaia)
2017
- Champion of the Billabong Pro Tahiti trials in Teahupoo (Tahiti)
2016
- Champion of the Allianz Perfect Chapter in Praia do Norte, Nazaré (Portugal)
2014
- Qualifies for the WSL Championship Tour (World Top-34) of the WSL
2011
- Champion of the Pantín Classic in Pantín, Valdoviño (Galicia)
2010
- Maresia Surf International Champion in Florianopolis (Brazil)
2009
- Third at the Billabong Pro Tahiti in Teahupoo (Tahiti), his best result on the WSL Championship Tour
2008
- Collect WSL injury wildcard to requalify for Championship Tour
2007
- He manages to qualify for the first time for the WSL Championship Tour (World Top-34)
- WSL European Champion
- Champion of the San Miguel Pro Zarautz in Zarautz (Gipuzkoa)
As you have already seen, ambition, work and illusion are not the only things that move Aritz. We hope that you have been able to get to know him a little better and wish him, like us, the best in his career towards the Tokyo Games!
