In the cover photo: On one side, Kelly, the one in charge now is Aguerre.  

Not long ago, the International Surfing Association was ignored by its cousin, the Association of Surfing Professionals, now the World Surf League. Surfers almost always chose events in the latter, which did not offer any special window for tournaments in the former and could even impose fines on surfers who went to compete there.

These were some of the other battles that took place since the International Professional Surfers was created and separated from the International Surfing Federation.

The 129th session of the International Olympic Committee, which took place on 3 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, prior to the start of that year's Games, changed everything.

There was the WSL CEO, then Paul Speaker, in a foreign territory, begging for accreditation to the glamorous venue where the official announcement was made that surfing would be in Tokyo 2020. There was also Gabriel Medina, who had travelled to Rio to commemorate that his sport would be an Olympic event.

Some say that the World Surf League is interested in this because it is the catapult to find non-endemic brands that bring in more money (in the midst of a much talked about crisis of endemic brands), others say that it is to sell their wave pool, and others say many other things, it could be for all of these reasons and for many other reasons.

But at the end of the day, that's not what matters most in this column.

In three or four years, the situation has changed radically, and this can be read in two press releases that the ISA sent the day before yesterday and today:

-The best athletes of the WSL and the WSL obeyed without saying a word the order to go to the World Surfing Games 2019, they must do so because if not, they will not be able to go to Tokyo.

-The best in the world and the WSL accepted without a word a change in a very controversial anti-doping test they used to do and agreed to do the one proposed by the ISA, which is much more demanding and much more difficult to overcome.

Now CEO Sophie Goldschmidt said, according to a press release first sent by the ISA today: “Together with Fernando and the entire ISA team, we are committed to the principles of the Olympic movement, which includes clean and competitive sport, where genuine athletic ability must come first. I want to thank the ISA for their collaboration and we look forward to an amazing year for surfing on the road to Tokyo 2020 and beyond.”

These last words, coming from someone in the World Surf League, would not have been imagined by even the most imaginative surfing analyst just five years ago.

There is an interesting shift in the balance of power between these two organizations, which in the end has to be recognized as very positive. Instead of being caught in the middle of an ego fight (of which many federations are victims), the authorities decided to put that aside in order to achieve a greater common good. It may sound innocent but in the end this is already benefiting surfing in general (leaving aside that radically purist minority).

And be that as it may, if this were a championship, the ISA is barreling at Jaws 25 feet right now, and the WSL is on the shoreline applauding.