Olympics Confirm New 2021 Date – Surfing Included In The Games

The organising coalition for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has announced a new date for the Summer Olympics. The Opening Ceremonies will now run on July 23rd, 2021. It’s been reported that the IOC had considered running the Olympics next spring, but opted to run exactly one year later from the original date this year’s Games were scheduled for.

In terms of how this effects surfing, with over half of the 40-person competitive field already provisionally qualified via the 2019 Championship Tour and the 2019 ISA World Surfing Games, there remain a few open spots yet to be decided.

A maximum of two men and as many women can represent each country at the Olympics

Out of the surfers to secure qualification, Jordy Smith is the first and only South African so far. The list of qualifiers mostly dominated by Brazilians, Australians and Americans, which three Frenchmen, including Flores.

At the end of the 2019 Championship Tour season, the WSL provisionally qualified 18 surfers to represent the sport’s Olympic debut:

MEN

• Italo Ferreira
• Gabriel Medina
• Jordy Smith
• Kolohe Andino
• John John Florence
• Jeremy Flores
• Michel Bourez
• Owen Wright
• Julian Wilson
• Kanoa Igarashi.

WOMEN

• Carissa Moore
• Caroline Marks
• Stephanie Gilmore
• Sally Fitzgibbons
• Johanne Defay
• Tatiana Weston-Webb
• Silvana Lima
• Brisa Hennessy

Yours in surfing,

The Surfboss team!