The Olympians

Over 50 years ago surfing’s greatest ambassador of all time, the legendary Duke Kahanamoku, had a vision that one day surfing would become an Olympic sport.

Unfortunately, the Duke never got to see that moment come to fruition in his lifetime, but in 2016 all 90 member countries of the International Olympic Committee voted unanimously to accept surfing into the Tokyo Summer Olympics 2020. Across the platforms of the ancient Olympics and the evolution of the modern Olympics, the games have always been the pinnacle of sporting achievement and greatness. In most sports even the World Championships plays second fiddle to the Olympics. And while qualifying places for each country’s surfers has been a rather confusing system to get our heads around, across the Pan American Games, the WSL, and the ISA Champs in 2019 and 2020, each competing country/continent could qualify a maximum of two surfers per division, with 20 men and 20 women squaring off for Olympic glory in Tokyo 2020.

We proudly celebrate that Ella “Ellympian” and Billy “Billympian” Stairmand, have ‘provisionally’ qualified for the Olympic Games.

But, first let’s clarify a few common questions:

How did they achieve this? The top-placed Oceania surfer, as long as they were in the top 30, received immediate qualification. Yes, Australia is part of Oceania, yet they have used up their two qualifying spots by way of the WSL.

The position has been announced as provisional, does this mean that they might lose their spot? With the 2020 ISA World Championships taking priority over the 2019 results, it is mathematically possible that both Billy and Ella could be replaced by another NZ surfer, yet two different surfers other than these two would have to finish likely placed in the top 5 un-qualified males and top 7 un-qualified women, which based on this year’s event would be top 16 males and top 19 females. If one Kiwi surfer was to achieve these positions both Billy and Ella could be joined by another Kiwi going to the Olympics.

BILLYMPIAN