Olympic Blood Feud: Wavegarden vs Surf Ranch!

Paris Olympics to use Wavegarden Cove?

In a mostly ignored piece of news in December, it was announced that the city of Paris, which is holding the 2024 Olympics, will build a Wavegarden Cove as part of a multi-billion-dollar revitalisation of the city.

The Cove will form part of the Terre d’Eaux Project in Sevran, one of Paris’ poorest suburbs, one of those famously “gritty” banlieues. 

Surfers Village picked up the story, propaganda, whatever it was. In an interview with Baptiste Caulonqueon, a former Rip Curl GM who’s involved in the Terre d’Eaux project, he said, “Once surfing and para-surfing is scheduled for certain for 2024 Olympics in Paris, there is a fair chance that Terre d’Eaux will apply to host these events as the Cove offers world class waves in great numbers and Sevran is located at the very heart of the Olympic village.”

Y’hear that?

Surfing. Olympics. Wavegarden.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.

Our source says the WSL is scouting land in Japan to build a KSWC Surf Ranch in an attempt to prove to the IOC that it would be a better alternative to the beachbreaks and jetties of Shida, just outside Tokyo.

And that the WCT event at the Surf Ranch in September has been designed to show the IOC how it’ll all work.

If the play doesn’t work, or if the pool can’t be built in time and Wavegarden Cove steals the Paris games and becomes the first wavepool ever used in the Olympics, how’s that going to impact on the KSWC biz model?

Meanwhile, a player in the French surf industry is scouting for land out the back of Hossegor for a Surf Ranch.

Pools everywhere!

Talk about a blood feud coming up,” says our source.