Costa Rica's surfing hero Carlos Munoz eager not to be ‘DNS’ again after unsuccessful dash to Tokyo 2020

Three years ago, Carlos Munoz sat on a plane that was about to take off from Los Angeles to Tokyo, watching the surfing heats from the 2020 Olympic Games and trying not to cry as his own name flashed on the screen.

The Costa Rican surfer had just made his way out of one of the heaviest storms to hit Central America in recent months while the country rallied to get him to the Olympics with less than 48 hours to go before the start of his heat.

In the end, the dream invite to compete at Tokyo 2020 as a replacement turned into heartbreak as Munoz’s delayed flights meant he was still on the other side of the Pacific when his heat was announced.

“Somebody came and hugged me and I'm like, ‘Oh, man, I want to cry. I feel like a little baby when you don't get a toy’,” Munoz recalled. “But those things make you stronger, and I think I grew a lot from that experience.”

Olympics.com chatted to Munoz at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games in Puerto Rico where he is hoping to earn one of the six available men’s quotas for Paris 2024* and, following that, book an early ticket that will not put him in any danger of missing a flight to the Olympic Games again.

*As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.

Click here to see the official qualification system for each sport.

Surprise invite for Carlos Munoz: “Wake up, you’re going to the Olympics”

Heavy rains lashed Costa Rica in late July 2021, causing rivers to overflow and more than 3,000 people to evacuate their homes.

Munoz and his younger brother Alberto were on a surf trip at the time and had been driving all day until a blocked road forced them to make a pit stop.

Sheltering from the elements in a hotel, the brothers’ conversation veered to the Olympic Games, their origins and heroes, until Carlos Munoz fell asleep. An hour later, he was woken by his brother who was shaking him awake to break the exciting news.

“He was like, 'Man, wake up, wake up, wake up!',” Munoz said. “’They're calling you to go to the Olympics'. Last minute somebody didn't show up, so I was the next in the list. And I say, ‘OK, I take the chance and I am on my way there’.”

As Munoz soon found out, however, that was easier said than done.

While a slot did open up for Munoz after Portugal’s Frederico Morais tested positive for Covid-19 and withdrew from competition, the surfer still needed to find a way to get from Costa Rica’s backcountry to the shores of Japan’s Tsurigasaki Beach with less than 48 hours on the clock.

Flying from Costa Rica to Japan on short notice would be a challenge any day, but Munoz faced an even bigger obstacle as the roads around him were closed due to the recent tropical storm.

“All the roads were closed and then they [federation] call me,” he said. “'OK, Carlos, where are you? We hear that you have a part in the Olympics'. ‘Oh yes, I'm here trapped in this place'.”

Fortunately for Munoz, as soon as his compatriots found out about the prestigious invitation and his plight, they rushed to help.

One friend bought him plane tickets, another brought his passport, while firemen rushed him to the hospital for the Covid-19 test that was mandatory to enter Japan.

Even the country’s then-president, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, pitched in by offering his helicopter.

“Everybody was trying to make me cross over the line and finally, they were like, ‘Oh, we're going to send you a helicopter. We're going to send you a fire truck’,” Munoz said.

“I went to the firemen and said, ‘Please, nobody can pass through here’. And the firemen came up with idea like, ‘OK, we're going to put you on the team and you're going to go straight to the hospital, get the test’. And then my board - I didn't have my boards, I didn't have my passport - so somebody give me the clothes. Somebody bring me the passport. And I made it at 7:30 to the airport.”

Carlos Munoz – an Olympian on screen only

While the mad dash got Munoz to the airport, he then had to endure an agonising 40 minutes when his flight from San Jose was delayed.

The same scenario played out during his transfer in Los Angeles.

This time, however, a second 40-minute delay meant he missed the last plane that could get him to Tokyo 2020 on time.

“My friend from Hawaii gave me the credit card to buy any type of ticket that you need. I even paid 5,000 to go in the faster way, but somehow 40 minutes, and then we got to LA, another 40 minutes. Even the people of the Japan Airlines wait for me like an hour and they never do that,” Munoz said.

“I lost the connection between LA and Tokyo, so I buy another ticket to get to the other airport, but when I was about to get into the plane, they announced my heat.”

Munoz was on the plane when heat 5 of the first round started. His name came on the scoreboard alongside Brazil’s three-time world champion Gabriel Medina, France’s Michel Bourez and Germany’s Leon Glatzer.

The elimination round 2 had Munoz pitted in the same heat as another surfing legend, two-time world champion John John Florence.

In both instances, Munoz’s name had a DNS (Did Not Start) next to it.

“They did the rounds of elimination at the end of the first day and if they would have postponed for next morning, I would get there on time,” Munoz said. “But at least my name showed up on the screen and everything, so I couldn't be there, but I was there.”

Dislocated shoulders and other injuries: Munoz’s rocky quest for greatness

The near-miss of competing at Tokyo 2020 is just one of the setbacks that Munoz has had to overcome on his surfing journey.

The same year as his delayed flight to Tokyo, he qualified for the World Surf League’s (WSL) Championship Tour only to injure his shoulder in the first event at Pipeline.

“I prepare myself for that, like 12 years trying, and finally qualify and hurt myself,” 31-year-old Munoz said. “It's been a rollercoaster.”

At the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games he dislocated his shoulder on landing a massive air in the repechage round. With his survival at the Games on the line, Munoz snapped the shoulder back while riding his board and then paddled back into the line-up.

The ocean rewarded his heroics with a solid wave, which Munoz caught with seconds until the final buzzer to finish with a winning total.

Next Olympic chance for Carlos Munoz

It is more than a personal ambition for Munoz to compete in the biggest surfing event in the world.

He is the first surfer in his family, which immigrated from Nicaragua when Munoz was two months old.

“Over there the people only play baseball,” Munoz said. “Me and my brother, we are the first generation that we surf. We were living in the city and my mum moved, looking for a better life in the coast. We moved to the beach and fell in love with the ocean.”

While Munoz is a first-generation surfer in the family, he is certainly not the last.

“Everybody’s surfing,” he said about his kin.

That includes his three children who are six, three and almost one year old.

“I was so into surfing that my baby was two months - she couldn't move her head or nothing - and she caught a wave with me,” Munoz said. “Hopefully my kids will be good surfers.”

Looking back at how much surfing has meant to Munoz puts his rollercoaster 48 hours of trying to get to Tokyo 2020 into sharper focus. And when it comes to making his next bid for an Olympic appearance, Munoz is keen to avoid such last-minute surprises.

He has followed a gruelling training regime for three months to be in his best shape for the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games where six individual Olympic quotas are on the line in the men’s competition.

“I qualified for the WCT. That was my long-run dream as a kid and I make that one, but now I want to be in the Olympics,” Munoz said.

“We had one Olympian who won a gold medal, Claudia Poll Ahrens in swimming, a long time ago. She's a hero for us. And for me, it would be amazing just to be able to open the gate for many kids in Costa Rica, that dreams can happen.”

Watch Munoz and other Paris 2024 hopefuls compete at the final Olympic surfing qualifier from 23 February to 3 March on Olympics.com and the official Olympics app.