World Surfing Games Reaches Midway Point with Olympic Quotas On the Line

Four days of competition have been completed at the 2022 World Surfing Games, marking the halfway point of these championships. The games are currently being held in Huntington Beach, United States.

The event features a double elimination bracket where an athlete is only eliminated if they fail to finish in the top two in their heat twice. Currently, 12 men and 16 women remain in the main bracket while all other surfers have been placed into the repechage bracket.

The World Surf League, the governing body for professional surfers is well represented on the men’s side where 9/12 athletes in the main bracket are part of the permanent roster for the 2022 season. On the women’s side only three permanent roster athletes are competing. Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons and United States’ Gabriela Bryan remain in the main bracket.

The best performance on the men’s side so far was Griffin Colapinto of the United States who scored a 17.00 in the second repechage round, a statement performance after being eliminated from the main bracket in the second round. Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi, silver medalist at the 2020 Olympics has been the most consistent where he has so far finished first in all four main bracket rounds, including obtaining the second and third highest overall scores so far in the first and fourth rounds respectively.

In the women’s event, the best performance so far came from Australia’s Sophie McCulloch who scored a 16.43 in the second round of the main bracket.

This event offers one man’s and one woman’s quota to the 2024 Olympics. In a bit of twist from the other quotas, the place is awarded to the highest-ranking nation in the team points rankings. The team points are calculated based on the combined results from the three competing athletes. The quota is awarded to the nation and will allow a nation to potentially send three athletes should they qualify two individual quotas at future events.

The World Surfing Games will continue until September 24th.