And eight surfers gifted spots into the 2024 Paris Games, surfing to be held at Teahupoo!
The surf world is reeling today after minnows Peru stormed to victory at the ISA World Surfing Games, a sorta Olympic qualifying event held in queer-unfriendly El Salvador.
Last year’s winner Team USA, whose squad this year included world champ John John Florence, world number one and Surf Ranch Pro champ Griffin Colapinto, five-time world champ and Olympic gold medallist Carissa Moore, finished the tournament in fifteenth place behind Germany, Italy and Canada.
Despite the shock withdrawals of the triple world champ Gabriel Medina and world number two João Chianca due to a mysterious COVID-like virus, Team Brazil slid into third, just behind the powerful French team courtesy of Tatiana Weston-Webb winning the gals.
Half-gringo Alan Cleland Jr, who has one of the world’s heaviest beachbreaks in his front yard and a drug-cartel war in the back, won the mens, beating Peruvians Lucca Mesinas and Miguel Tudela and Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi in the final.
Like France’s Joan Duru who won the contest in 2021 but missed out on getting to the Games, his victory don’t automatically sling Al Jr into the 2024 Paris Games.
If South Africa’s Jordy Smith, who has already booked his tracksuit and dorm room in 2024, double qualifies via the CT, Al will be waving his Mex flag at the end of the road there in Teahupoo.
Despite the confusion that surrounded the event over the format, the withdrawals, a mysterious disease claiming two of the sport’s biggest drawcards, boilover heats where the world’s best surfers were curb-stomped by unknowns, eight surfers were gifted their spots in the Olympics: Shino Matsuda and Kanoa Igarashi for Japan, Billy Stairmand and Saffie Vette for New Zealand, Kauili Vaast and Vahine Fierro, France, and the aforementioned Jordy Smith for South Africa alongside Sarah Baum.
