2023 ISA World Surfing Games: Day 1 results, highlights, and livestream from the Olympic qualifier event
On the first day of competition, Olympics.com checked in with the nations making their debuts, applauded Gabriel Medina’s gesture of friendship, got technical analysis from a pair of local Para surfers, and watched athletes take on the rough waves in La Bocana and El Sunzal. Relive the action and watch the next heats live on Olympics.com.
Surfing
The athletes of the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games started on their journey to qualify for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Wednesday, 31 May as competition got underway in Surf City El Salvador.
While most had their minds set on clinching Olympic quatas and making history in a year’s time, a handful of athletes were already busy making history on the rocky beaches of El Salvador.
Four nations are making their debut at the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games, which has 294 surfers from a record 63 nations participating. The new entries are Czechia, India, Latvia and Mauritius.
Olympics.com got their first reactions as they walked out of the foamy surf.
India’s debut: From fisherman’s village to world stage
Sivaraj Babu was the first of three surfers representing India to enter the waters at the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games, marking a historic milestone for his country.
“That means that it started, that Indians have started coming and hopefully in a few years, the champions come from India,” Babu told Olympics.com after finishing his round 1 heat.
His teammates and coach lined up on the beach and waved India’s flag as Babu battled La Bocana’s surging waves. While it was not enough to take Babu into the top two, seeing the flag motivated him to keep fighting.
“I watched the flag and them waving, supporting me. It made me super happy,” Babu said. “It was really hard to find the waves in this tricky condition, but I finished my heat.”
Born into a fisherman’s family, Babu grew up with the “best right-hand point break in India” two minutes from his door and followed his older brother into surfing.
“I used to roam around the beach and have fun with the beach,” Babu said. “I used to surf half a board, a broken board, standing up on a broken surfboard. And I felt (like I was) flying on the board, super happy, riding on the surf on my first ride. I loved it so much, I wasn’t able to stop.”
Nothing could make Babu stop surfing – not even a powerful tsunami that hit the Indian coast in December 2004. While his family was not directly affected, his parents became too scared to let him go out into the open ocean.
“My parents, they are fishermen. They know a lot about the ocean,” Babu said. “They were scared whenever I go surf and they used to plead with me, don’t go surf.
“I stayed away from the ocean, but still, when I saw that wave, I really wanted to surf, so I jumped back again.”
Fast forward a few years and Babu is still jumping into oceans, now for the first time into the Pacific. And just as before, his family is worried, except for a different reason.
“I got a cut yesterday. I had to get stiches,” said Babu who competed with a red bandage on his left foot. “When I told my mom, she was like, ‘Oh no’. She was a bit crying because I have to compete next day and she feels I couldn’t show my best.
“At the beginning, they didn’t even know I’d make it – I didn’t even know I’d make it to this level – and I’m super happy that I made it here and my family is super proud of me.”
Latvia’s sole surfer feeling Lithuania’s brotherly love
Latvia has one representative at the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games, Santa Vevere. But while she is by herself, Vevere is not feeling lonely.
“I’m alone here, representing Latvia, but here we have as well my brothers from Lithuania,” Vevere told Olympics.com, pointing to three male surfers who were on hand to cheer for her.
Lithuania made its debut nine months before, at the 2022 edition of the annual event.
Coming from the Baltics, the surfers from Latvia and Lithuania have similar experiences in the sport – and also face similar challenges.
“(We’re) surfing in the Baltic sea, so small waves, small country, always a wind swell and that’s not a proper swell, so it’s quite hard,” said Vevere, who competed in the women’s round 1 heats on El Sunzal beach. “What we try to do, we try to be as much as possible somewhere out to surf in Europe or wherever in the world. Mainly we are not constant surfers, but we try to do as much as possible.”
Gabriel Medina: World champion welcomes rookies
It came as no surprise when Brazil’s superstar surfer Gabriel Medina finished at the top of his heat with 16.43 points, the highest score of the day.
What was more unexpected, however, was to see him run up to the Indian team after. Medina congratulated Babu on finishing his earlier heat and greeted the other Indian surfers Ajeesh Ali and Ramesh Budihal.
The rest of the Brazilian athletes, who were cheering for Medina from the beach, made a similar gesture of friendship when they saw Ali and Budihal walking by in the afternoon.
USA's John John Florence also welcomed the rookies, posing for a group photo.
Para surfers cheer and offer technical analysis
The Indian team were not the only ones left star-struck by the Brazilian three-time world champion.
Para surfers from El Salvador’s newly formed national team were also out on the beach to watch the competition. And one surfer impressed them in particular.
“It was very exciting to watch how the athletes surfed in the waves and how the waves were. They were super difficult, and when the boards did those manoeuvres, flying in the air, truly, it was really exciting,” Jonathan Parada Arras, a two-time participant of the World Para Surfing Championship, told Olympics.com.
“I was watching especially (Gabriel Medina) in the last heat, and I was imagining myself catching the wave the way that he was doing it, not going down in the wave, more on top of the wave and doing the same tricks. I was imagining myself doing that.”
The Para surfers were also on hand to support El Salvador’s surfers, Porfirio Miranda and Daniel Monterrosa, both of which advanced to the next round.
“I am very proud watching the Salvadorian guys catching the wave,” Para surfer David Chavez Trujillo told Olympics.com. “It’s something that comes from the bottom of the heart, catching the wave like that. Watching these guys doing it, I’m very proud.”
As it happened: Top action from Day 1
The sport’s biggest stars had no difficulty advancing to the next round at the top of their heats.
Olympic champion and current world No.1 Carissa Moore got the highest score of the day in El Sunzal, 16.16 points, with fellow USA surfer Caroline Marks getting the second best score, 14.50.
Meanwhile, Brazil’s 38-year-old Silvana Lima emerged as the surprising star of the day with 14.07 points, taking the waves on with a veteran's confidence.
In the men’s competition, USA's John John Florence and Australia's Ryan Callinan made their starts and advanced easily into the next round.
Looking ahead: Day 2 action
The men’s and women’s first round wraps up on 1 June with more superstars paddling out into the line-up.
The new world No.1 Griffin Colapinto will be in the first heat of the day, while the man he knocked down from that spot over the weekend, Joao Chianca of Brazil, competes later in the afternoon.
Top contenders for the Paris 2024 qualification quota for Asia, Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi and Indonesia’s Rio Waida, also enter the waters tomorrow, while France's Johanne Defay will be the main star to watch in the women’s competition.