2024 ISA World Para Surfing Championship Opens with Celebratory Parade in Huntington Beach, California

ISA uses occasion to promote women’s participation through specialized workshop

Huntington Beach, California – November 3, 2024

The 2024 ISA World Para Surfing Championship (WPSC) officially opened today in Surf City USA, with hundreds of spectators lining Huntington Beach’s Main Street to show their support for the world’s best para surfers.

An epic Parade of Nations took place. Led by the Huntington Beach High School marching band, the parade featured nearly 150 athletes, representing 25 national teams, and 9 different Para Surfing Sport Classes. The teams paraded towards the famous Huntington Beach Pier with flags flying high and loud cheers ringing out.

The massive crowd then gathered in Pier Plaza for the ISA’s signature Sands of the World ceremony. One member from each national team poured sand from their local beach into a single container, a symbol of the peaceful gathering of nations of the world through surfing.

Women make up over one third of the athletes present, the largest percentage to date. Earlier in the day a women’s workshop was held at the event site to encourage community and shared resources, as well as to discuss overcoming barriers and to promote Para Surfing to more women.

The ninth edition of the WPSC also marks the ninth major ISA event to be held in Huntington Beach, dating back exactly 40 years to the 1984 ISA World Surfing Championships. The iconic destination is hosting the WPSC for the second year in a row.

Visit Huntington Beach President and CEO Kelly Miller and Huntington Beach Mayor Gracey Van Der Mark welcomed the athletes and declared the event officially open.

“We invite you once again to be part of history right here in Huntington Beach,” Miller said. “To surf, to compete at the iconic historic HB Pier World Championship. You’re going to look back on this and say that you did the deal right here in Surf City USA.”

ISA President Fernando Aguerre said:

“These are going to be amazing days of surfing in Surf City, USA, Huntington Beach. What a wonderful place full of history for the ISA, for World Championships, for US National Championships, for legends. There has been surfing in Huntington Beach for decades and decades. It’s a part of the history of surfing in the United States.

“As you know, we were working very hard to get Para Surfing in the Paralympic Games ever since surfing was included in the Tokyo Olympic Games. Tokyo turned us down. We worked hard for Paris. Paris turned us down. We worked hard for LA and LA turned us down. But you know what? We don’t give up. Just like you (para surfers) don’t give up. You never gave up. We’re not going to give up. We’re going to continue to work hard to make Para Surfing a Paralympic sport. It’s justice, it’s fairness, it’s opportunity, it’s a better word through surfing, in this case, through para surfing.

“So all your efforts are well taken care of, all your efforts help. Everything that you do is part of the Para Surfing wave that we’re all paddling to get, to catch, and to make it happen. And in 2032, in the Olympic Games in Brisbane, in Australia, Surfing will be included and we will continue to work hard for Para Surfing in the Paralympics. You don’t get what you want. You get what you work hard for and you end up convincing the rest of the world.”

The 2024 WPSC is set to begin with Men’s Stand 2 at 7:30am, PST, Monday, November 4, at Southside Huntington Beach Pier.