John John Florence will forgo his best chance to qualify for the LA 2028 Olympics and skip the 2027 WSL Championship Tour. Florence, who has taken a two-year-and-counting sabbatical to sail around the world with his family, will continue his ocean journey, he told ESPN.
In the 4,000-word ESPN article, Florence described his months-long decision-making process as he sailed from the Caribbean to French Polynesia and then to New Zealand. Ultimately, ahead of the WSL’s November 1 deadline to apply for a season wildcard, he decided his sailing life mattered more than returning to competition in 2027.
“We need more time,” Florence told ESPN. “There’s a lot of momentum with what I’m doing now.”
“But I’ve started on this new path, and it’s hard to take a step back and go back to the other path,” he added. “I know what it takes to compete and win and give everything. It would take away a lot of little moments and I’m not sure I want to give up those moments. That’s time I’ll never get back.”
Still, Florence didn’t rule out a return in 2028.
“But me choosing to (not return to the tour) isn’t choosing never to compete again,” he added. “I’m hopefully going to be in the Pipe event with a wildcard. I have a huge amount of respect for the athletes and the tour. If you don’t want to be there, if your heart and mind isn’t 110 percent into it, then you shouldn’t be there. It’s hard on the people around you. I don’t want to take a spot if my mind isn’t 100 percent there.”
Florence revealed that he had long wanted to take a sailing sabbatical, and partly blamed his half-hearted desire to compete for his knee injuries in 2018, 2019, and 2022.
“I’d get halfway through a year and to a point of not wanting to be there, just burnt out,” Florence said. “And then I would get injured. There’s such a connection between your mind and body. Sometimes your body goes, ‘No. We’re not doing this right now.'”
By not competing on the 2027 tour, Florence will miss his best chance to qualify for the LA 2028 Olympics via the CT, which will take the top-finishing eight men and women — with a limit of one surfer per country — based on the CT rankings between August 15, 2027 and June 15, 2028.
However, there is another way to qualify for LA 2028. If John John Florence rejoins the tour in 2028 and is selected to represent Team USA in the 2028 World Surfing Games, he could qualify if he is among the top seven eligible surfers.
The Hail Mary chance at an Olympic slot seems like it could entice Florence to return to competition in 2028.
“An Olympic medal would be a huge deal,” Florence said. “But more than the medal, the goal of it is pretty cool because it’s such a different way of competing. The Olympics puts a lot of energy into a single moment. I mean, we’re talking about it now, and it’s a couple years out. That’s what makes the Olympics so special.”
The article even quotes Kelly Slater, who thinks an Olympic gold could motivate Florence, who finished ninth in his first two Olympic appearances. “If I could trade a world title for a gold medal, I would,” Slater said.
Florence told ESPN that he tried to get a wildcard into this year’s Tahiti Pro, but the WSL gave it to Kelly Slater instead, whose company Outerknown was an event sponsor. The WSL then offered Florence a wildcard into the Fiji Pro, but sailing to Fiji did not line up with his travel plans.
“It’s always been a dream of mine to sail up to an event, surf the contest, win it, and then sail away,” Florence said.
Ultimately, despite months of deliberation, Florence’s decision was simple. He’s happy sailing with his family and focusing on being a dad. He went as far as to say that competing at this point would be “selfish.”
“I love what I’m doing now,” Florence said in September. “I think it balances well, and I don’t think the tour balances with having a family.”
Instead of filling up the WSL’s Instagram with competition highlights, 2027 will be another year of sailing on his boat, Vela, and vlogging about the adventure. And if everything goes to plan, John John Florence can have his cake and eat it too if he qualifies for the Olympics in 2028.
