World Surfing Games 2024: Nine surfers pick up Paris 2024 tickets on seventh day of competition

Paris 2024

All eight individual women’s quotas have now been handed out at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games, with five men’s quotas still up for grabs.

7 minBy Lena Smirnova
Camilla Kemp secured at ISA World Surfing Games 2024 quota for Germany

(Pablo Jimenez/ISA)

Nine tickets to Paris 2024 were handed out on the seventh day of competition at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games with Peru and Spain getting two spots each on Friday (1 March).

Three athletes made history by becoming the first surfers from their countries to qualify for an Olympic Games*.

In the women's competition, Nadia Erostarbe and Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri earned the first Olympic surfing quotas for Spain, while Yang Siqi will make an Olympic surfing debut for the People's Republic of China. Yang and Gonzalez-Etxabarri secured their berths by coming through the women's repechage in a heat that saw Sky Brown's hopes of qualifying for the next Olympics in two sports end.

Camilla Kemp is set to become the first female surfer from Germany to represent her nation at an Olympic Games after outscoring two Tokyo 2020 Olympians in her sixth repechage round heat.

Her 11.60 score beat the nearest competition, Canada’s Sanoa Olin, by 6.11 points and meant the end of the Olympic road for Costa Rica’s Leilani McGonagle and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Tsuzuki Amuro of Japan.

“It’s crazy. It doesn’t feel real yet,” Kemp told Olympics.com after receiving her ticket. “The contest is still going, I’m still in the event, I can still hopefully get a medal for Germany. Right now, just enjoying the moment, enjoying this spotlight, enjoying the whole feeling.”

*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.

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Second Olympic appearance for Anat Lelior and Yolanda Sequeira

Israel’s Anat Lelior has a berth for her second Olympic Games. She was eliminated in the second round at Tokyo 2020 in 2021 and said she more prepared for her latest Olympic quest.

“My first one, when I was 19, I qualified, and now I’m almost 24. It’s amazing,” Lelior said Olympics.com. “I feel prepared, feel grown up and can’t wait to shred it.”

It will also be a second Olympic appearance for Yolanda Sequeira. The Portuguese surfer learned of her qualification in the evening of Thursday, 29 February, but had to wait until the following day to receive her golden ticket to Paris 2024.

“Having the opportunity to go again [to the Games] is incredible,” she told Olympics.com after. “I don't have words.”

One ticket for Taina Hinckel and a step forward for Brazilian female surfers

Like Sequeira, Peru’s Sol Aguirre and Brazil’s Taina Hinckel found out about their new Olympic status a day before but were overjoyed to get their tickets safely in hand on Friday.

“It’s a dream come true. Being able to represent my country is something incredible,” said Hinckel, who celebrated her accomplishment with the Brazilian team the night before when the other surfers threw her a barbeque party.

For the 20-year-old surfer, it was also a moment to reflect on the growth of female surfing in her country. While Brazil has heavy representation at the top tiers of surfing, such as the WSL Championship Tour, there are visibly fewer Brazilian women at those competitions.

“The level of female surfing in Brazil is getting better and better. It makes us want more, gaining experience, and thereby improving our performance around the world,” she told Olympics.com.

“Being able to represent a generation and also represent Brazilian girls, for me is really cool and the most important thing, to show that Brazilian female surfing can go from the grassroots to the top level.”

Alonso Correa clinches third quota for Peru

Hinckel’s quota is a fourth for Brazilian surfers at Paris 2024.

Peru also upped their numbers at the upcoming Olympics when Alonso Correa punched the first of the six individual men’s tickets available at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games.

Correa clinched the ticket after finishing second in his round 5 heat, and will join Aguirre and Lucca Mesinas. The latter qualified through the 2023 Pan American Games in October.

Mesinas also competed at the Tokyo 2020 Games and helped fuel Correa on the path to his own ticket.

“Last Olympics were really inspiring, watching the surfing I was like, it’s really possible to be there,” Correa told Olympics.com. “That was amazing and that motivated me more for this Olympics to try and qualify, and I’m happy to make it through.

“The Olympics is a huge thing,” he continued. “Everybody in Peru is going to be stoked to see that flag next to my name in the water when the Olympics are on, so it makes me proud.”

Repechage heats and team battles intensify

While some surfers celebrated their Olympic tickets on shore, the battle continued to rage on the Rastrial waves.

There was also no shortage of drama in the repechage as Germany’s Tim Elter and USA’s Carissa Moore managed to survive their heats in a buzzer beater.

Elter was trailing Brazil’s Filipe Toledo and Portugal’s Frederico Morais with seconds to go on the clock when he caught a wave to jump 0.13 points ahead of the Portuguese surfer.

“I had a lot of mistakes in the beginning,” Elter told Olympics.com. “Then he did a big mistake by letting me go on that last wave in the last 30 seconds and I guess I ripped it and they gave me the score. What a comeback, I’m super excited.

“My thinking was, I have nothing to lose because I’m the underdog. I’m the young gun and these are super experienced guys and for me to make that heat, it would cause big upsets, and so it did.”

Olympic champion Moore also stayed in the running for a World Surfing Games title by jumping into the top 2 in the final seconds, behind Israel’s Lelior.

While her last-minute surge led to the elimination of Lucia Machado, the Spanish surfer could still qualify for Paris if her team finishes the competition top-ranked among the women.

Spain currently leads the women’s team competition with 2,260 points, while Brazil is 60 points behind in second and also with two surfers still in the competition.

In the men’s team competition, the battle was on between France and Brazil.

As all three French surfers – Kauli Vaast, Marco Mignot and Joan Duru – are still in the main round, the pressure was on Brazil to also keep their numbers intact.

While Gabriel Medina had no problem topping his round 5 heat, the team’s prospects dimmed when Toledo and Yago Dora found themselves in the same repechage heat. The Brazilians would have to finish one-two to keep their hopes of a third men’s quota alive.

It was a dramatic show in the final heat of the day as Portugal’s Guilherme Fonseca and Chile’s Manuel Selman caught solid waves and bumped one or both of the Brazilians down. In the end however, Toledo managed to secure the top spot with 10.76 points, Dora just 0.09 points behind.

“Everyone’s super happy. Our team’s really united, really strong” Dora told Olympics.com about the team’s atmosphere going into the deciding rounds. “Everyone’s been cheering for each other up and supporting each other, hoping everyone does good.”

Dora gave Brazil another reason to cheer in his earlier repechage heat that day when he caught a 9.50-scoring wave. This is currently the highest-scoring wave of the competition.

“I was really confident after that,” Dora said. “It’s always a good sign when you start like that, especially in the first minute and in conditions like this where it’s hard to get a high score.”

The action continues on Saturday, 2 March with the men’s and women’s main rounds as well as three men’s and two women’s repechage rounds.

Follow the action from the final Olympic surfing qualifier live from anywhere in the world on Olympics.com and the official Olympics app.

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