Get to know youth surfer, Virginia Beach resident Cose Stoyanoff
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Cose Stoyanoff has made a name for himself in the surfing world at the age of 15. Cose is a Virginia Beach native and has been surfing with his older brothers his entire life. When he was younger, his brothers would put him on their boards and push him into the waves. His dad and brothers continued to push him until he could do it all on his own. Cose started competing at age 10 and has been soaring since.
Cose is a sophomore in high school and attends a virtual school called Stride Virtual Academy. This allows him and his family to spend time in both Virginia Beach and Buxton, NC in order for his surfing career to continue to flourish. Cose surfs every day for hours, regardless of water or air temperature.聽Cose surfs all year and trains with his coach Morgan O鈥機onnell in Buxton. When he鈥檚 not doing school work or out in the ocean, he loves doing push-ups, pull-ups and strength training.
Cose is extremely athletic and played competitive travel soccer as well as Jui Jitsu. As he got into surfing competitions more, he had to make the difficult decision to focus solely on surfing and leave soccer behind. 鈥淗e had to make a choice between the demanding soccer practices and traveling with his soccer team. He started hating leaving the beach to go to soccer so he had to make a pretty big decision and he chose surfing,鈥� his mom Shauna tells me.聽
Cose recently competed in his first World Surf League (WSL) event, the Vans Pro qualifying series 3000, as part of the Mens Open and finished in the semi-finals. He competed in his age division聽(15-17y) at ECSC the last week of August and finished in 3rd place. This September he also surfed in the Carolina Cup Pro/Am contest and in a WSL event in Nags Head. Cose surfs on the USA Prime, which is by invitation only for the best U18 surfers in the USA. Cose is currently ranked 24th in the nation. Cose is working hard to make it to the Championship Tour.聽
When he isn鈥檛 surfing, Cose is outside playing with his friends. He loves to fish, hang out with his older brothers, play airsoft and sleep in late like a normal teenager! Cose loves the feeling of freedom and calmness surfing gives him. He鈥檚 always perfecting his skills and is currently working on his airs and rail game. He loves surfing at ECSC and has met a lot of his role models and pro surfers. We are proud to have Cose representing his hometown in ECSC!
You can follow along with Cose and all of his surfing adventures on Instragram @cose_sea.
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