by Jonathan Morris BBC News

Team GB did the country proud at the Olympics in Beijing.

Now it is turn of the nation's surfing team at the World Surfing Games.

The Games, widely regarded as surfing's equivalent to the Olympic Games, start in Portugal on 11 October.

At the last games, in California in 2006, the team came ninth out of more than 30 nations.

Twenty-three-year-old Ben Skinner from Perranporth in Cornwall won a silver in the long boarding class and missed out on gold by less than one point.

This time he is hoping to go one better at Portugal's Costa de Caparica.

The team hopes to go higher than its ninth place in 2006

He said: "I felt I was very close to winning the world title.

"But anything can happen in surfing. I just happened to fall on that last turn and the difference was 0.34 points from winning the world title.

"It was almost mine and this year I'm going back with that determination and drive that has given me."

Micah Lester from Constantine who has been in good form on the UK professional surfing circuit, is also expected to do well.

The team took a hit in the week before the championships when Reubyn Ash from Bude dropped out of the team because of other commitments.

I just want to prove to the world that we have got the talent, drive and ambition to win the world title Ben Skinner

Skinner reckons the team has got what it takes to make it higher than the ninth place, despite lacking the funding that other teams such as Australia and France have.

For instance everyone will be paying their own way to the surfing games and there is no full-time trainer for the team.

He said: "I just want to prove to the world that we have got the talent, drive and ambition to win the world title and beat these guys.

"You don't need all that money and training. I think we have enough passion to do it."

In all, 12 surfers from across Cornwall, Devon, Jersey and Wales have been selected for the 2008 ISA World Surfing Championships.

As well as Skinner, Mark Harris, Alan Stokes from Newquay and Micah Lester from Constantine will be battling in the Open section.

The woman's team will see a combination of Swansea's Beth Mason and Jo Dennison from Pembrokeshire carrying the British flag.

In the body board team the English and British body boarding champion Damien Prisk from Camborne will join local colleague Alex Winkworth and four times British Champion and multiple Welsh Champion Gemma Harris, who will represent the British women.

Gemma Harris, who lives in Newquay, is confident despite nursing an injury earlier in the season.

Andy Sturt of the British Surfing Association said: "Our British athletes will be pushed to their very max.

"We're looking to beat our last results and ensure that we see this British team prove themselves within the global top ten."

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