Cover photo: ISA/Jimenez

The huge disparity between continental realities makes it necessary to change the continental part of the Olympic classification, which is overseen, organised and determined by the International Surfing Association.

A great injustice is created between continents for obvious reasons: Some are more advanced surfing-wise than others and therefore, just by coming from a certain country, they qualify for the Games just by going to the World Surfing Games and being in the top 30.

The best example is what happens to the New Zealanders, who compete against each other because the Australians qualify for the CT and whose goal is basically just to go to the ISA World Surfing Games and achieve the quality requirement.

Another good example is Africa, which in the previous World Cup (continental Olympic qualification) left its male surfer slot free (because Jordy Smith managed to qualify through the CT) and so did Alan Cleland.

The same thing had happened in a different twist with Japan in Miyazaki 2019 and that was why Sofía Mulanovich had managed to qualify.

Something similar happens to the Asians, basically Japan is the power and those who reach the Games through the test are the Japanese (Reo Inaba and Shino Matsuda in El Salvador 2023).

In stark contrast, European and Pan-American countries are bleeding out in a fierce battle, with several falling short of the quality requirement of the top 30.

To make matters worse, the Pan American Games do not even qualify directly for the Games, but rather they qualify for the Pan American Games and only then do they decide on their Olympic qualification.

A madness of injustice, a madness of contrast that has been repeated for two Olympic cycles now and that must change.

Because there are no development-related arguments or anything like that: That is, American Samoa's surfers may be able to compete with the Kiwis, but they will still be the same number of countries.

So if a situation that is clearly unfair is repeated, if one country qualifies for the Games by walking and another by leaving sweat, blood and tears, the ISA will have to consider that change, if it has not already done so.

My suspicion is that he is already doing so.

The changes are just beginning to be outlined, but this, along with tightening the screws on the CTs so that they actually compete in the World Surfing Games, seem like two obvious changes that are going to be made.