LA LIBERTAD, El Salvador — Bob Levy grew up in El Salvador but discovered surfing in California, and he vividly remembers the day he returned to his homeland and hit the beach with a stiff, 10-foot surfboard under his arm.

“They didn’t even know it was a board,” Levy recalled. “They thought it was an airplane wing.”

Decades later that wing, along with a prayer of sorts from the government, has turned a 13-mile stretch of Salvadoran shoreline into one of the world’s newest surfing meccas. It’s a spot where the waves are so ripe and the water so warm, tourism officials are hoping it can repair the country’s battered image while the International Surfing Assn. has chosen it as the location of the final qualifying rounds for the debut of surfing as an Olympic sport this summer.

The eight-day competition, known as the World Surfing Games and featuring 256 athletes from 51 countries, concludes Sunday.