Why — And How — To Watch Women’s Surfing in the Olympics-Part 7 -The Olympics!
What’s at Stake: The Olympics!
Olympian Sally Fitzgibbons, Australia, photo Ben Reed, World Surfing Games, El Salvador, 2021
2020 was supposed to be the debut of surfing in the Olympics, and we all know what happened to that! The Tokyo Olympics are underway, and appear to be unstoppable.
Who are the Olympians? Since this is surfing’s Olympic debut, and the framework did not yet exist to qualify athletes, the powers that be had to get creative in their mission to identify the best surfers in the world. The road to Tokyo was more like a treasure hunt than a direct route, involving four different pathways, including the 2019 World Championship Tour, the 2019 and 2021 World Surfing Games, and the 2019 Pan American Games. (For a blow-by-blow of the nail-biting twists and turns of the 2021 World Surfing Games that filled out the final 40, check out Dashel Pierson’s recap in Surfline.)
Olympian Amuro Tsuzuki, Japan, photo Sean Evans, World Surfing Games, El Salvador, 2021
Surfers’ opinions on whether the Olympics will deliver and connect with an audience are as varied as, well, the waves rolling and crashing towards the shore. No matter what, surf fans will enjoy a fresh crop of world-class surfers, many of whom have not qualified for the World Championship Tour and have therefore not been visible on media outlets. Lack of qualification for the pro circuit often has little to do with talent or capability. Bottom line: it takes hard cash for a surfer to travel all over the world to attend enough events and earn enough points to qualify for the tour. Not everyone’s lives line up to make that possible. So while many expect the top tier of World Championship Tour pro surfers to dominate the games, if there is anything we know about surfing, anything can happen in a heat. We could very well see a local hero take down a famous name.
Pro surfers and surf fans are hoping the Olympics will inspire a new demographic to fall in love with surfing as a spectator sport, whether they live in India or Indiana, near an ocean, or a desert spring. My own passion for writing this series of articles was fueled by my awe and appreciation of the women in this formerly male-dominated sport. These athletes are some of the most talented, best-conditioned, fearless, driven, committed, and accomplished in the world, and they deserve a world stage! But it is impossible to understand what is happening if you do not have a sense of what is at stake. (If you would like to learn more about what makes these athletes so badass, see the links to the series at the bottom of this page.)
Olympian Leilani McGonagle, Costa Rica, photo Pablo Franco, World Surfing Games, El Salvador, 2021
If you’re feeling the stoke, here are the details about surfing’s debut in the Olympic Summer Games:
When are the Surfing Olympics? July 24-August 1, 2021. The full broadcast schedule is posted here.
Where will the Surfing Olympics be held? Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach, Ichinomiya town on Chiba Prefecture’s Pacific coastline.
How/where to watch Olympic Surfing? In the US, viewers can stream on NBCOlympics.com. You can sign up and list your favorite sports, which I am hoping will create alerts. If you have a TV and cable, you will have access to the full array of content, including surfing. If you don’t, like me, it’s going to be hunt and peck. I am still scrambling to totally understand it, but this article from the Washington Post is the most complete resource I have been able to find.
For countries outside the US, Olympicsvenue.com lists live broadcasts around the world. The platform, Kodi, offers steps to watch the broadcast for free.
What will the judging criteria be?
From the recap on the International Surfing Association’s (ISA) Olympics Page: “A panel of five judges will score all rides in each heat based on judging criteria which include commitment and degree of difficulty, innovation/progression, variety, combination of major manoeuvres, and speed, power and flow. The winners of each individual heat are determined by totaling the athlete’s best two rides, and the winners advance to the next round of competition.”
What is the format?
According to the ISA, the “format (full details here) includes 6 rounds of surfing that will narrow the field of 20 men and 20 women down to the Gold Medalists.”
How many Olympians are there?: 40 Total— 20 women and 20 men, from 17 countries: United States, Brazil, Costa Rica, Australia, France, South Africa, Portugal, Peru, Japan, Israel, New Zealand, Ecuador, Argentina, Germany, Chile, Indonesia and Morocco.
Who are the Olympians? The final qualifiers from the 4 different pathways, both women and men, are below:
I have to make one editorial comment about what it takes to win one of those top spots on the WSL Championship Tour (WCT). On this pathway, surfers did not qualify from just one contest, but from an entire year of competition. And, each year surfers have to re-qualify to compete on the WCT, which includes 32 spots for men, and 17 for women. Getting to, and staying on, this tour has no parallel in other sports. If a surfer does not finish in the top 20 for men, or top 10 for women, they have to participate in the secondary tour, the World Qualifying Series (WQS), which also holds contests all over the world. In order to accomplish this, they have to travel to enough contests, often without major sponsors, to score points. The bottom line is, it takes years and years and years of major money outlays, life on the road, scrapping with rippers from all corners of the earth to scratch their way onto the tour and stay there, and especially to finish at the top of the rankings.
World Championship Tour Surfer and Olympian Sally Fitzgibbons, photo Ben Reed, World Surfing Games, 2021
Women’s surfing has a powerful history, and I cannot help but shout out this excellent article about the origin of the sport of queens, by Lauren Hill. The History of Female Surfing: A Legacy of Hawaiian Medicine Women, Royalty, Goddesses and More.
I hope that throughout these missives I have made some sense of the complexities of modern surfing, and enabled you to cheer for these amazing athletes now and in the years ahead.
Now, let the games begin!
Links to the whole series:
Part 2: What’s at Stake — Navigating the Ocean — The Wipeout
Part 3: What’s at Stake — Navigating the Ocean — The Paddle Out
Part 4: What’s at Stake — The Wave Itself
Part 5: What’s at Stake — The Surfer
Part 6: What’s at Stake — Scoring and Maneuvers
Part 7: What’s at Stake — The Olympics!
Sheila Gallien is a writer, channel, conscious creativity coach and soul surfer. Her screenplay, Dropping In, inspired by her own story of finding true courage through surfing is soon to be a major motion picture. She lives on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she dreams of someday getting barreled. Visit www.sheilagallien.life to find out more about her transformational work.