Construction on Slater's pool in Japan is only just beginning, if it has even begun, journalist Jamie Tierney reported on The Inertia two days ago, after visiting the lot where the WSL is supposed to have purchased the building.

After touring Japan and getting information from locals, Tierney arrived at a site in Kisarazu, outside Tokyo, which he described as “gigantic,” “at least ten times larger than Leemore’s Surf Ranch” and that the preliminary construction will occupy 57 hectares and the size of the pool will be 580 meters long and 150 meters wide.

In June, local Japanese media reported that construction of the pool would begin in September. The WSL CEO confirmed the news and said that her intention is for the pool to be used for surfing's debut at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Both the ISA president and the president of the Japanese Surfing Federation said that this will not happen and that the surfing event will be held in the ocean.

In the same vein, in The Inertia's article, the president of the Japanese federation, Atsushi Sakai, said that if it is ready, the pool will be used as a demonstration site, but not for competition.

The first information that was given Regarding the WSL project in Japan, it was indicated that the pool would be ready in March 2019 and would be built on a 57-hectare plot of land near the Tisayama route. It would measure 580 metres long and 150 metres wide, generating waves of up to two metres high.

In the video shown by Tierney, it can be seen that the construction is very little advanced, there are some bars that prevent access to an almost empty field where no one was working.

Tierney questioned whether the project would be completed in time: "For now this is an empty field," he said.