China’s Olympic surfing scout makes waves in North Korea after finding the first break

Nicola ‘Nik’ Zanella spots a break in North Korea on Google Earth and seeks permission to find the wave and introduce locals to surfing

The Italian fosters surfing in China and becomes a scout for talent when the sport is added to the Olympics

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Nicola Zanella surfing in North Korea at Majon beach resort. He first spotted a wave in North Korea on Google Earth. Photo: Uri Tours

Published: 2:46pm, 5 Jan 2021Updated: 2:56pm, 5 Jan 2021

There may be just one surfer in North Korea, introduced to the sport by an exploring Italian who spotted a break on Google Earth. Now other North Koreans are following suit.

“Nobody likes to surf alone,” said Nicola ‘Nik’ Zanella, coach of Lee Sung-chol, possibly North Korea’s only surfer. “Sung-chol told me that he wished he had people to surf with.”

Zanella, 53, started surfing at 14, part of the “first generation of Italian wave riders”. He mapped out the surfing spots of Italy, explored the waves around the world and then edited a surfing magazine. Zanella, who studied Chinese literature and philosophy at university, started coming to China in the early 1990s, first to learn the language, then to surf.

He became part of the birth of Chinese surfing. When it made it into the Olympics for the first time in 2020 (the Tokyo Games have been postponed to 2021), Zanella became a talent scout for China’s national team. In 2019, he published a book called Children of the Tide, where he argues that surfing was practised in China more than 1,000 years ago.