Cloud 9 will make its debut on the Championship Tour. But it will hinder Olympic qualification chances for some. Photo: Dunbar//WSL
Before this year, surfing’s foremost institutions had been, it appeared, getting along famously. But the World Surf League’s announcement today that it had added a Championship Tour event in the Philippines to its schedule marks a new era in the relationship between surfing’s professional league and its Olympic authority. All the signs point to one thing: these two surfing entities seem to be operating with very different agendas.
Yesterday, the WSL sent out a communication declaring it was adding a new venue to the CT calendar. Today the League revealed that stop is Cloud 9, a world-renowned reef break on Siargao Island, Philippines. But there’s a catch: the window of the new event, October 31-November 10, clashes with the ISA’s World Surfing Games in Peru, scheduled November 6-15.
The WSL said the new venue was added to ensure the tour retains 12 events. We can all probably assume that’s in case things go badly in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi is canceled due to the U.S.-Iran conflict. Sources with knowledge of the matter told us that the Abu Dhabi event may get replaced even with the addition of Cloud 9, creating a 13-event calendar. For now, the Abu Dhabi event, previously scheduled for October, has been pushed back to November 25-29.
This year’s World Surfing Games will not directly qualify athletes for the LA 2028 Olympics. However, the highest ranking men’s and women’s teams will earn their country an Olympic slot, which could count as an “extra” third slot if a country fills its quota of two surfers per gender.
Championship Tour surfers now have no choice but to forgo one of the pathways to the Olympics. The WSL’s press release about the new venue doesn’t mention the clash with the Olympic qualifiers. We of course reached out to the League about the schedule conflict, but have yet to hear back, and we might not.
The WSL’s venue announcement comes two days after the ISA released updates to its qualification system. Back in February, surfing’s Olympic governing body announced an overhaul to the LA 2028 qualification, reducing the weight of the Championship Tour and increasing the importance of the World Surfing Games. After the CT surfers publicly and privately lobbied to change the system, the ISA released an amended version this Monday, partially returning Olympic slots to the WSL.
The WSL and ISA had entered a new era of partnership since surfing was included in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The two organizations had coordinated calendars so CT surfers could represent their nations in ISA events. But that relationship seems to have soured. The WSL publicly criticized the ISA’s first iteration of LA 2028’s qualification system, saying the ISA “ignored our attempts at a reasonable partnership.” Now, the tables seemed to have turned.
The double booking with the Philippines CT event might look like a calendar kerfuffle at first glance (or a tough-to-turn-down financial opportunity from the tourism board). But sources told me the ISA didn’t get a heads-up about the schedule change that would conflict with its Olympic qualifier before releasing the new qualification system this week. They were just as surprised as everyone else.
An international federation feuding with a professional league is not new to the Olympic world. Professional hockey players didn’t compete in the 2018 or 2022 Olympics due to failed negotiations between the NHL and the sport’s international federation. Neither the ISA nor the WSL would benefit from relations becoming that strained.
From my view, both organizations are vying for power, instead of looking for ways to share it. Apparently, the ISA and WSL have determined that their end goals are incompatible, and a chess match has ensued. The ISA could alter the dates of the World Surfing Games to solve this issue. But if they do, it sets a precedent that the WSL’s calendar is more important than the ISA’s. If they don’t, the world’s best surfers are going to miss out on a portion of the Olympic qualification and a chance to add an extra surfer for their country.
We’ll see who makes the next move.
