Spain’s Audrey Pascual could be just one of a number of surfing competitors in Los Angeles. Photo: Sean Evans//ISA
Para surfing has to jump one final hurdle to be included in the Los Angeles 2028 Paralympic Games.
In an announcement that largely went under the radar in the surfing world, in January of this year LA 2028 and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) announced that para surfing and para climbing would be considered as additional sports on the program – on top of the 22 confirmed sports.
Now para surfing awaits a final approval by the IPC Governing Board to be made by the end of 2023.
The announcement comes after a year-long application process where new sports were invited to apply for inclusion. The summer and winter Paralympic games generally occur just after the Olympic games in the same host city.
“The initial sport review process … included a 20-page questionnaire across a variety of criteria that aligned with the key guiding principles for the Paralympic Games – excellence, diversity, universality, integrity, sustainability – and a Games Proposal,” said Fernando Aguerre, President of the International Surfing Association, the governing body of Surfing and Para Surfing. “The process opened in January 2022 and included a series of reviews and consultations with the IPC.”
The ISA’s previous bid to usher surfing into the Paris 2024 Paralympics fell short. However, continued growth of the sport around the world and a particular relevance for Los Angeles, a global hub for the surf industry and culture, have catapulted surfing into serious consideration for Paralympic inclusion.
“We understood there was an emphasis from LA28 on innovation, local/national relevance and cultural impact in proposing consideration for the two additional sports,” said Aguerre. “We were able to show that over 37 countries are actively participating in para surfing worldwide, which exceeds the IPC threshold.”
Para surfing’s progress in attaining Paralympic inclusion comes after a years-long campaign to develop the sport at the competitive level. The ISA launched the annual World Para Surfing Championships in 2015 and has grown the championship’s participation to 180 surfers from 28 countries during its most recent event in Pismo Beach.
The IPC’s final decision now hinges on a secondary, final review of the new sports.
“The IPC Governing Board (GB) takes into account such factors as it considers relevant, including without limitation: maximum sport, discipline, event and athlete quotas; costs and venue requirements; potential impact on the organizing committee; any strategic priorities or targets established by the IPC GB for the relevant edition of the Paralympic Games; and eligibility criteria,” an IPC spokesperson told The Inertia. “Both (para surfing and para climbing) have demonstrated the competitive viability and integrity, as well as the strategic benefits to the Paralympic Games, of their sport, to the satisfaction of the IPC Governing Board.”
In February of 2022 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially voted to include surfing in the LA 2028 Olympic Games. The surfing venue in Los Angeles has not been decided, but one can imagine that Huntington Beach and Trestles, two waves with proven track records of hosting elite international events, will be frontrunners.
From a costs perspective it’s reasonable to believe that para surfing, if included, would utilize the same venue as Olympic surfing, but the IPC at this point cannot confirm such an assumption.
Jose Martinez catches a keeper during the 2021 Pismo Beach event. Photo: Ben Reed//ISA
“(The venue) is a decision for the organizing committee at LA28,” said the IPC spokesperson. “The IPC has accessibility guidelines that all contain the venue, technical specifications, training for accessibility, games requirements, etc, that Organizing Committees for the Olympic Games must deliver.”
It is unclear what financial impact para surfing’s inclusion in the Paralympic games would have on the ISA and its national federations. The amount of funding the ISA received for surfing’s inclusion in the Olympics Games has not been publicized, although the new sports in Tokyo 2020 notably missed out on the International Federation revenue share that ranged between USD $13 million and $39 million per sport.
Given that the IPC reported expenses that nearly matched revenue in the year of 2021, certainly any financial impacts that result from Paralympic inclusion would be significantly less than those that surfing has received, or will receive.
Noticeably absent from the IPC’s and LA 2028’s shortlist of new sports is para skateboarding, whose Olympic Games counterpart was the third youth sport that debuted alongside surfing and sport climbing at Tokyo 2020. World Skate, the Olympic governing body of skateboarding, did not even participate in the application process for the LA 2028 Paralympics, which has caused uproar within the skateboarding community.
