The long-awaited and celebrated debut of surfing at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games coincides 100% with the only confirmed women's QS 10.000 of the season, the US Open, and several athletes have already said that they do not want to fight for medals, not even for a place in Tokyo 2020, and instead compete for a place in the CT 2020 (which will not give Olympic passage).

It is interesting to question the weight that these events have for sports, when it seemed that the Olympic movement was finally gaining ground, it suffers an interesting setback.

Summer Macedo and Zoe McDougall from the United States, Brisa Hennessy and Leilani McGonagle from Costa Rica and finally Tia Blanco from Puerto Rico preferred not to participate in the tournament.

This acts as a clear setback for Lima 2019 and for Olympic surfing.

On the one hand, winning a Pan American medal does not seem to be of much value to surfers. Various countries offer significant scholarships to those who win them, but this does not seem to be of much importance to the aforementioned athletes.

Now, denying the Olympic possibility is surprising, especially for Leilani and Tia, and also to some extent for Brisa (who is doing well this year in the CT and was the third best seed in Lima 2019 where she already won).

Summer and Zoe have no chance of going to Tokyo because, according to hierarchy criteria, the CT comes first and there are Americans there who will always leave them out.

It's surprising because the event will be for 16 surfers and with double elimination on a consistent wave like Punta Rocas. To put it into perspective, at the 2020 World Surfing Games, Leilani and Tia's next chance to make it to Tokyo, there will be about 150 surfers and Steph Gilmore, Carissa Moore, Courtney Conlogue, Tatiana Weston, will be required to participate (it is a rule that those classified by CT must be in the WSG).

Who can say anything, though? It is up to each of them to decide which dreams they want to pursue. And they are certainly not alone in this journey, they have families, sponsors, coaches and federations that they can count on to help them choose what they choose.

But this makes the point of the title even stronger: Even with such a clear chance to be part of the historic debut of Olympic surfing, there are athletes who prefer to bet on being part of the CT, even though there are other options on the calendar to obtain points.

It is an issue that the authorities must keep in mind. After all, for some surfers, getting into Tokyo 2020 does not seem to be a big deal.