The ISA announced yesterday that the International Olympic Committee had confirmed the classification criteria that had been announced in December 2017 in conjunction with the World Surf League; the governing body of the Games respected the proposal made by the body that governs surfing in the world.

The details of the announcement made yesterday brought news, mainly indicating that there could be a country that ends up taking six athletes - three men and three women - in cases where the CT does not fill the quotas that indicate that 10 men and eight women will qualify with a maximum of two athletes per country.

In this case, the champion country of the 2020 World Surfing Games will be able to complete the missing quota with one more athlete.

To be clear: Assuming that in a hypothetical 2019 women's CT Australia obtains two places, the United States two, France two and Brazil one and there are no more surfers from other countries to qualify - something that could perfectly happen - the winning country of the 2020 World Surfing Games will have the right to bring a third athlete and thus complete the quota of eight.

And, in the event that there is no other athlete from that country who is a WSG champion in the CT, the QS will be used.

Finally, if the quota is not filled in this way, the QS ranking will be used. That is to say, if the CT tour that defines it, for example, only has surfers from the United States, Brazil and France, the QS tour would be used to find the two missing athletes.

The news gives special importance to the 2020 World Surfing Games, in case the 2019 CT ends without filling the aforementioned quotas of 10 men and eight women. For the women, the situation becomes especially interesting.

The IOC confirmed, having already been informed in December, that the key elements of the qualification system are the following:
-20 men, 20 women.
-A maximum of 2 surfers per gender per National Olympic Committee (NOC) –with the major exception reported above-.
-Qualifying places will be won individually, by name.
- According to IOC rules, qualification events have been determined in hierarchical order of classification, as explained below; If two surfers of the same gender have qualified through the first hierarchical order, a National Olympic Committee may not qualify more surfers of that gender through lower-ranking qualifying events.
-All surfers selected by their respective National Federations for their national teams must participate in the 2019 and 2020 ISA World Surfing Games to be eligible for Olympic qualification. Final details of eligibility requirements are still under review by the ISA and IOC.

The hierarchical order of classification will be as follows:
-World Surf League Championship Tour 2019: Top 10 eligible men and top 8 eligible women.
-ISA World Surfing Games 2020: Top 4 eligible men and top 6 eligible women.
-ISA World Surfing Games 2019: 4 men and 4 women selected based on their continent. First eligible surfer of each gender from Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
-2019 Pan American Games: First eligible man and first eligible woman in Surfing competitions.
-Host Nation Quota: One man and one woman from the host nation, Japan, will be guaranteed a quota spot unless the quota spot has already been filled through the above hierarchies. If athletes from Japan qualify through the above hierarchies, their quota spots will be reallocated to the first eligible surfers from the 2020 ISA World Surfing Games.