Nations well-represented on the CT, like Australia with Molly Picklum (above), will get a leg up on the Olympic slots at the World Surfing Games. Photo: Pablo Franco//ISA
When the International Surfing Association’s first Olympic qualifier for the LA 2028 Games takes place in Peru later this year, countries with Championship Tour surfers will receive a head start. Updates to the qualification system released in June give CT surfers a free pass into round three of the World Surfing Games, leading some stakeholders to celebrate, while others cry foul.
Last week, the ISA announced it will delay round three at this year’s World Surfing Games as a workaround to an overlap with the WSL’s CT event at Cloud 9. This would, in theory, allow the CT surfers to jet from the Philippines to Peru to participate.
This year, the stakes are relatively small — the highest-ranking men’s and women’s teams at the World Surfing Games will earn a slot that their nation can fill as it pleases. It can also become an “extra” third slot if the country fills its two-athlete-per-gender quota through other qualification pathways. But in 2027 and 2028, the ISA events will qualify more athletes based on individual performances, which compounds the round-three advantage given to CT surfers.
Current CT rankings leader and two-time Olympian Leo Fioravanti welcomed the news that he’ll be able to represent Italy at the World Surfing Games. “It’s really nice that we get a round three seed and give us a chance to compete in Peru,” he wrote to The Inertia.
Fioravanti downplayed the advantage, saying that, regardless, the “ISA is a long, grindy event and you have to lock in and surf a bunch of heats, no matter what.”
However, other past Olympians are not pleased that they’ll have to surf at least two more heats than CT surfers while battling for their LA 2028 slots. Chile’s Manuel Selman, a Tokyo 2020 Olympian, told The Inertia that the new rule creates an uneven playing field.
“This isn’t about the CT surfers — they’ve earned their place at the top of professional surfing,” Selman said. “It’s about preserving the integrity and fairness of an event that has always been built on equal opportunity for every nation.”
Given the Olympic values of universality and fair play, the ISA member nations sans CT surfers could have legitimate legal challenges against the ISA. Germany’s Tim Elter, a 2024 Olympian, said he’ll urge his national federation to file a complaint.
Ultimately, Elter is disappointed that the WSL was able to force the ISA to amend its qualification system. According to sources with knowledge of the matter who spoke with The Inertia, WSL CT surfers and their union, World Professional Surfers, threatened to boycott the ISA’s Olympic qualifiers after the ISA reduced the weight of the CT in Olympic qualification. The rumblings were enough to worry the International Olympic Committee. It led the ISA to update the qualification system, restoring (some) of the CT qualification slots and introducing the round-three seeding at the World Surfing Games.
“What makes me so sad is that the ISA fought for so long to get surfing to the Olympics — it changed the sport, even for the CT guys — and the ISA had to adapt to the WSL,” Elter said. “(That) is not the way things should work because the Olympics are not about having the greatest athletes, but about having the most diversity. That’s what makes the Games so beautiful. And they’re just killing that. It’s not good for the sport.”
The round-three rule will give a clear advantage to countries that can fill out CT-heavy rosters, such as Australia, Brazil, France, and the U.S. Australia and America, the countries that will reap the biggest advantage, can field full CT teams — three men and three women — starting two rounds ahead of the field.
USA Surfing and Surfing Australia didn’t respond to questions about whether they believe the advantage is fair. A USA Surfing spokesperson said its World Surfing Games team will be selected as per the CT rankings as of September 20. However, that does not guarantee that surfers will accept their invitations. Unlike previous years, CT surfers are not required to surf in the event to remain Olympic-eligible.
Flavio “Teco” Padaratz, the president of Brazil’s surfing federation, supported the rule because it allows “countries with less experience to advance in the competition” before facing CT surfers. But he also acknowledged that the delay of round three in Peru does not guarantee that Brazil’s CT surfers will be able to compete. If the Cloud 9 event utilizes its full window until November 10, CT surfers would have to compete the following day (with the help of a 13-hour time zone difference), November 11 in Peru.
“We plan to have the best (surfers), but we don’t know if they can get there on time,” Padaratz said.
Ben Kennings, Chief Executive of Surfing New Zealand, understood the move.
“Everyone wants to see the best surfers in the world compete at the ISA World Surfing Games, and if advancing world tour surfers through to the third round helps with scheduling, then that is what has to happen,” Kennings wrote in an email.
Other federations were not in agreement. Gonçalo Saldanha, the president of the Portuguese Surfing Federation, a country with two women CT surfers, told The Inertia that giving CT athletes an advantage is “not in the Olympic spirit.”
The drastic overhaul of the Olympic qualification in June overshadowed the round-three seeding rule for CT surfers. But with the decision to delay ISA round three to accommodate the schedule clash with the WSL, the conversation has officially entered the public domain. It begs the question: Will anyone stand up? Just as CT surfers strong-armed their way to alter Olympic qualification, could non-CT surfers, or national federations without CT surfers, use their leverage to push back against a perceived injustice? There are still three more months for this saga to play out.
