World Surfing Games 2024: Rio Waida, Ramzi Boukhiam, Andy Criere, Tim Elter, Joan Duru clinch Paris 2024 individual quotas amid repechage drama

Paris 2024

Two team quotas remain to be given out  as the final Olympic surfing qualifier comes down to the deciding heats in Arecibo.

5 minBy Lena Smirnova
Ramzi Boukhiam earned an Olympic quota at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games.

(Sean Evans/ISA)

Four male surfers earned provisional quotas for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games* after a dramatic ninth repechage round at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games on Saturday, 2 March, live on Olympic Channel.

Indonesia’s Rio Waida and Morocco’s Ramzi Boukhiam are headed to their second Olympic Games, while Spain’s Andy Criere, Germany’s Tim Elter and France's Joan Duru will make their Games debut at Teahupo’o.

“This is amazing, this is beautiful,” Waida told Olympics.com after getting out of the water with the Indonesian team welcoming him with waving flags and loud cheers. “That was the reason why I came to this event.

“Last time I qualified for Tokyo. That was amazing, and I knew I wanted to do this again."

Boukhiam, who finished second to the Indonesian surfer, followed him out of the water with a similarly elated expression on his face.

“The waves are grindy, but I kept believing heat by heat, wave by wave,” Ramzi told Olympics.com. “My dad is super proud of me up there, my country, all of Morocco. I’m really happy.”

*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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Criere’s quota is a third for Spain in two days. His teammates Nadia Erostarbe and Janire Gonzalez-Etxabarri claimed their tickets for the Paris 2024 women's event the previous day.

“It is simple,” Criere said about Spain’s success. “We are always together. We cook together, we sit at the table together to eat, to have breakfast. Each one adds his grain of sand to our success.”

Like Spain, France will also have strong representation at the upcoming Games. Duru was the fourth athlete to join the home team, which already features Tokyo 2020 Olympian Johanne Defay and Tahiti natives Kauli Vaast and Vahine Fierro.

“It’s amazing,” said Duru, who is planning to wrap up his surfing career after the home Games. “I’m proud to represent my place in the Olympics and Team France.”

Duru, Boukhiam, Criere and Waida remain in contention for the World Surfing Games title, while Elter was eliminated following his ninth round repechage heat.

Despite finishing behind Waida and Boukhiam, Elter secured his ticket by scoring higher than the third finisher of the previous repechage heat, Mexico’s Sebastian Williams who finished with 7.50 points.

“I’m overwhelmed right now with feelings and emotions,” Elter told Olympics.com. “Leon Glatzer was a very big inspiration to me. As soon as Leon qualified in 2021, I was really looking up to him. I was like, OK, it’s actually possible for a German to do it. It’s not out of reach.”

Alonso Correa took his quota the previous day, which means all six of the men’s individual quotas have now been given out.

World Surfing Games titles and team quotas to be decided on final day of competition

While there are no more individual quotas left at the World Surfing Games, the fight goes on for the team quotas and world titles.

Brazil currently leads the women’s team ranking with reigning champion Tatiana Weston-Webb and the country’s national champion Taina Hinckel fighting for spots in the final from the repechage.

The two Brazilian surfers will face tough competition to get out of their next repechage heat, however. There they will face Olympic champion Carissa Moore who was unstoppable until the final seconds on Saturday, taking a 0.30 win over Weston-Webb.

Spain is second in the team ranking, but only Erostarbe remains in the competition. She will face Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons in the next round.

A three-time World Surfing Games champion, Fitzgibbons is eager to reclaim her title as she clearly showed with her last-minute jump to second place in the women’s round 5, which led to Weston-Webb and Hinckel being sent to the repechage.

Over in the men’s team competition, France has broken into the lead after Brazil’s Filipe Toledo got eliminated in the day’s first repechage heat.

Fortunately, Toledo’s teammate Yago Dora was quick to lift the team spirits. As fatigue caught up to the other surfers pushing through three back-to-back repechage heats, Dora defied nature and continued to look stronger and stronger. The Brazilian surfer scored 14.73 to open his day’s campaign, bumped that up to 17.24 in the next heat and finished off with 18.46 in the third.

His last two scores are currently the highest-scoring heat totals of the competition.

Brazil’s three-time world champion Gabriel Medina follows right behind with the third and fourth highest totals. He got his highest score to date, 17.06 points, on Saturday, is undefeated so far in Puerto Rico and continues to improve heading into the final rounds.

Medina will face two Frenchmen in the next round, Vaast and Duru, while Dora will hope to fight his way from the repechages against Waida, Criere and Boukhaim to keep Brazil’s hope of a third men’s quota alive.

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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