Surfing-World champion says many top tour surfers unhappy with Olympic qualification tweaks

Feb 23 : World champion Yago Dora and other top surfers have criticised the sport's Olympic body over changes to the qualification system for the 2028 Los Angeles Games, saying the new system is flawed and that their concerns have been ignored.

Under tweaks announced by the International Surfing Association (ISA) last week, the number of surfers qualifying for LA28 from the privately owned World Surf League's world championship tour will drop to 10 from 20.

"We don't want an easier pathway to qualify than the rest of the surfers," Brazil's Dora told Reuters from Hawaii on Sunday.  

"We just wanted it to be fair, and we want to make sure that all the best surfers are representing their nations in the Olympics."

A total of 20 surfers, 10 from each gender, will qualify from the ISA's 2028 World Surfing Games out of an unchanged total field of 48 surfers. 

Most of the remaining athletes will qualify through one-off regional ISA events, with the maximum number of surfers per country rising to three from two. 

Only one man and one woman per country will be selected from the professional tour, down from two during the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Games. 

Selections from the world tour will take place in June 2028, early in that year's tour, meaning that the world champions from 2027 might not qualify for the sport's highest-profile event.

"The Olympics is the greatest single event in professional surfing and wouldn't you want the best surfers to have the best chance at qualifying?" Italian Olympic and championship tour surfer Leonardo Fioravanti said on social media. 

"The proposal that has been accepted today doesn't even guarantee the 2027 world champion competing in the Olympics."

Dora said tour surfers had given initial feedback and had