Australia is shelling out the cash to run two Olympic training camps for its surf team at Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch. Meanwhile, the UK is getting no funding from UK Sport. Photo: WSL/Kenneth Morris
We still have more than two years to go until surfing makes its Olympic debut in Japan, and yet nations hoping to secure some of the forty slots available and ideally take home a gold medal or two are rapidly making preparations.
Just this week, two interesting announcements were made that illustrate stark differences in the level of confidence countries have in their surfers.
On Tuesday, the surf associations of the British Home Nations – England, Scotland, Wales, and the Channel Islands – issued a joint press release explaining the surfing federations received no funding from UK Sport, the arbiter of Olympic sports funding for the United Kingdom.
“We have made submissions of funding requests and submission of all relevant data to UK Sport. On extensive analysis, UK Sport believes it is currently unlikely that currently any British surfer will win a medal in Tokyo 2020. UK Sport investment is wholly focused on medal-winning performances to inspire our nation,” reads the release.
“It is also yet to be confirmed if surfing will be in the 2024 and 2028 Olympics which also makes attracting investment into surfing a challenge. We will continue to collectively work to source performance funding.”
Jeez. Nothing like a heavy dose of realism.
Meanwhile, Great Britain’s former penal colony, Australia, is investing heavily in its national surf squad in hopes of putting in some medal-winning performances in 2020. On Wednesday, Surfing Australia announced it’d be the first national surf team to run training camps at Kelly Slater Wave Co.’s facility in Lemoore. Two of them! Given what we know about how much the WSL is charging to surf the pool, booking two days must have cost a pretty penny.
“In a world first, Surfing Australia’s National Squad will train at the World Surf League’s (WSL) Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California for two Olympic Readiness Camps in 2018 on June 18-23 and again in August (dates to be confirmed),” said Surfing Australia in a press release.
“It is the first time the World Surf League’s Surf Ranch will open its facility for National Squads to support their high-performance training needs heading towards the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Surfing Australia’s National Squad being the first nation to utilize the facility as a team.”
Oh, man. Taken together the contrast between potential Olympic surfers from the UK and those from Australia is stark. Although to be fair, as Surfing Australia’s release somewhat smugly explains, numerous surfers on Team Australia have already gotten to test out the technology for themselves.
“We want to provide our athletes with every advantage possible when preparing them for the upcoming Olympics where surfing will make its debut, and going to Surf Ranch is the ultimate way to achieve that,” said Andrew Stark, Surfing Australia CEO. “Coming to train at WSL’s facility is aligned with our commitment to providing our team access to the best training and technology available.”
“Our Australian Olympic Readiness program is about ensuring that we are the absolute best-prepared nation headed into Japan 2020 and we firmly believe that the Surf Ranch training camps will be a strong addition to our extensive high-performance program.”
Hmm. No doubt being able to surf the perfect wave on repeat multiple days in a row is a great training tool, and would be especially useful if the Olympics were to be held near a draining right or left pointbreak. But, in the humble Japanese prefecture of Chiba, is there a wave that even remotely resembles the left and right at the Surf Ranch? Still, we expect that the US and Brazil will be quick to book similar training camps to groom their respective Olympic hopefuls, too. And if they’re not, they should be.
This is what an average weekend looks like at soon-to-be Olympic surfing venue Ichinomiya, located just east of Tokyo. Photo: The Mainichi
