From Carissa Moore to Gabriel Medina: Who are the big stars to watch at the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games
The world’s top-ranked surfers, multi-world champions and Olympians are headed to El Salvador with their sights set on world titles and Olympic qualification spots. Find out who are the key athletes to watch at the Paris 2024 qualifier and catch all the action live on Olympics.com.
Surfing
The rough waves of La Bocana and El Sunzal are not the only intimidating aspects of the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games. Packed with Olympians, world champions, and top-ranked surfers, the dazzling line-up of the competition promises to be a force of nature in itself.
Teams from Australia, Brazil, Japan and the United States will look to reaffirm their dominance in surfing, with the biggest stars set to headline the nine-day event: Carissa Moore, John John Florence, Kanoa Igarashi, Gabriel Medina and Sally Fitzgibbons, among others.
And with eight qualification spots to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on the line - to be equally distributed among the top-finishing male and female surfers from Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania - every wave will matter even more.
Tickets to the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, an Olympic qualifier for surfers from the Americas, will also be up for grabs.
Take a closer look at the top names to watch and follow the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games live on Olympics.com.
2023 ISA World Surfing Games: North or South?
The men’s competition in El Salvador will be as tough as they get with all but one of the world's Top 7 ranked men paddling out into the line-up. And as often seen in the past, the Brazilians are the ones to chase.
With World Surf League champions Gabriel Medina and Filipe Toledo, as well as rising star and current world No.2 Joao Chianca, Brazil’s team presents a threatening mix of experience and youthful ambition that is hard to beat.
Yet that is exactly what the surfers from the United States will try to do.
Back-to-back World Surf League champion and Tokyo 2020 Olympian John John Florence is the grounding element on the squad, while world No.1 Griffin Colapinto is the boundary-pushing rebel with the energy to match that of his Brazilian rivals.
The rivalry between Medina and Colapinto is a particularly interesting one to watch. So far this season their head-to-head score is two to one, with Colapinto in the lead.
However, the battle is far from decided. Medina, who returned to the tour after taking time off for most of last season, is regaining his strength and celebrated a major victory at Margaret River Pro in April.
2023 ISA World Surfing Games: Back to El Salvador
As the top-ranked woman from Oceania at the 2023 World Surfing Games, Australian surfing veteran Sally Fitzgibbons is in a strong position to secure that Paris 2024 quota and qualify to her second Olympic Games.
Her prospects of winning the world title, however, are much less certain, as she faces tough competition from USA’s Carissa Moore and Caroline Marks, along with Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb, all coveting the same prize.
Fitzgibbons has previously tasted success on the La Bocana and El Sunzal waves before, winning the world title when El Salvador hosted the 2021 ISA World Surfing Games. Her results on the World Championship Tour have also improved in recent competitions.
Still, the challenge posed by Olympic and five-time World Surf League champion Moore and world No.4 Marks would be hard to beat.
Meanwhile, for Tatiana Weston-Webb, the pursuit of the world title comes with a personal mission. Often overshadowed by the Brazilian men’s team, the world No. 6 is eager to demostrate the impressive talents of female athletes within her country’s surfing scene.
2023 ISA World Surfing Games: Kanoa Igarashi vs Rio Waida
Japanese men earned themselves an additional third quota at Paris 2024 thanks to their victory at the 2022 ISA World Surfing Games. In this year’s edition, the team’s star surfer Kanoa Igarashi will be looking to secure an individual quota for himself.
However, the Olympic silver medallist has struggled on the World Surf League tour so far, barely making it past the mid-season cut line. Currently in 17th place, Igarashi is within close reach of another top contender for the Asia quota spot, Rio Waida of Indonesia.
2023 ISA World Surfing Games: Battling teammates
With only one Paris 2024 quota per gender available to athletes from each continent, the battles on the waves will not only be between nations, but also between teammates.
Expect a particularly gripping duel between Oceania’s heavyweights Ethan Ewing and Ryan Callinan, who are currently No.4 and No.8 in the world, respectively.
Paris 2024 would be the first Olympic Games for both.
Ewing had a slow start to the season, but won the fourth stage of the tour at Bells Beach where he beat Callinan in the final. His second-best result, third place, came two days before the start of the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games so Ewing will be in top form on the quest for a world title.
The top-ranked athletes from the African continent, Jordy Smith and Matthew McGillivray, are also teammates. The South Africans will be vying to become the first male surfers to represent their country in an Olympic surfing competition.
It would be a well-deserved reward for veteran surfer Smith, who made his professional debut 15 years ago and has consistently ranked among the Top 5 in at least one leg of the World Championship Tour since 2010.
Tune in to the live stream of the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games on Olympics.com to see which surfers will be among the first to get tickets to Paris 2024.