World Surfing Games 2024: WSL stars Caity Simmers, Matthew McGillivray eliminated during marathon of repechage heats
Italy’s Giada Legati fuels her surfing “obsession” with heat win, while Finland’s only athlete at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games Lukas McMahon makes a case that representing a country with “no waves” is no obstacle in surfing.
Surfing
World No.2 Caity Simmers and WSL Championship Tour surfer Matthew McGillivray became the first major casualties of the elimination rounds at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games in Arecibo, Puerto Rico on Tuesday, 27 February.
Simmers, who is provisionally qualified for Paris 2024, finished third behind American Samoa’s Lucy Jarrard and Japan’s Matsuda Shino. Jarrard had already surprised the USA surfer earlier in the competition when she topped their first-round heat and relegated Simmers to the repechage.
The 18-year-old surfing sensation has had a tough time at the World Surfing Games in Arecibo. She came into the competition with the spotlight of the Pipeline Pro victory still on her but could not deliver her typical high scores after hurting her foot by stepping on a sea urchin on the way to her first heat.
Surprised and in pain, Simmers struggled to get up on her surfboard and picked up a total of 4.40 points, which put her in third.
Relegated to the repechage, she then rallied with an impressive 15.67 points, but was down on her luck again in the second round with just 3.50 points, behind Jarrard and Matsuda.
*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.
Matsuda already has a provisional ticket to Paris 2024 after finishing the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games as the top-ranked female surfer from Asia. But her teammates, Tsuzuki Amuro and Maeda Mahina, are still searching for that Olympic ticket in Puerto Rico where eight individual women’s quotas are up for grabs.
All three Japanese women advanced from their repechage heats, and remain in good standing to add an extra, third women’s quota for their country if they finish as the top-ranked team.
Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Tsuzuki come second to Canada’s Sanoa Olin. Sanoa’s older sister Mathea, the 2019 Pan American Games bronze medallist, also advanced.
Italian surf veteran Giada Legati made it out of her repechage heat in first place despite dealing with “a lot of nerves” on the water.
“The first two waves, I couldn’t feel my legs. It was a tough loss two days ago, so I just want to give it my all,” Legati told Olympics.com.
After narrowly missing out on qualification for Paris 2024 at the previous World Surfing Games edition, Legati is determined to fight even harder in Puerto Rico.
“It would change my life. It would absolutely change my life,” she said of what it would mean to qualify for the Olympic Games. “It’s the most prestigious event in sport so it would create a lot of opportunities for me to continue this life that I want to live and that I live.”
“Surfing is the love of my life. It’s all I think about every day. It’s all I do every day. I travel to surf. I wake up to surf. Everything I do is for surfing, so you can call it an obsession, you can call it love, you can call it whatever. I’m here for it,” Giada Legati to Olympics.com
Teen sensation Erin Brooks also finished first in her heats to keep the Olympic dream alive. The Canadian surfer had solid support on the ground with dual sports star Sky Brown, who is competing on Wednesday in the women’s third round, cheering for her from the shore.
South Africa one down, while Finland’s sole athlete blazes ahead
South Africa’s Matthew McGillivray was another surprise elimination of the day. The WSL Championship Tour surfer finished last in his repechage heat, with Canada’s Wheeler Hasburgh and Jamaica’s Elishama Beckford advancing.
His compatriot Joshe Faulkner continues in the competition after winning his heat.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi and Connor O’Leary cruised to the next round with hefty leads. The defending champion Alan Cleland and the 2017 ISA World Surfing Games champion Jhony Corzo, both from Mexico, also topped their heats.
Tokyo 2020 Olympians Leandro Usuna and Peru’s Miguel Tudela remain on track for a second Olympic appearance. Tudela won his heat with Finland’s Lukas McMahon a close second.
“It’s so tricky out there. I got one good wave, I fell on it. I had a five. I fell. I was like, 'OK, I need to get the ball rolling,' so I got a nice one at the end and made the heat,” McMahon told Olympics.com.
Finland’s other surfer got hurt before the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games and withdrew from the competition, leaving McMahon as the only representative of the non-traditional surfing nation. As McMahon explained, “there’s just no waves” in Finland, which he atones for by training in the more surf-friendly waters of California.
The lack of waves, however, is also what makes McMahon even more proud to represent the northern nation at a surfing event.
“It means the world,” he said. “I just want to inspire kids watching my heat to say, ‘Oh, I want to try surfing’.”
You can follow the action of the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games from anywhere in the world through the Olympic Channel livestreams on Olympics.com and the official Olympics app.