Penultimate day of action at the 2021 Surf City El Salvador ISA World Surfing Games confirms nearly all qualifiers for Surfing’s upcoming Olympic debut
2021 World Surfing Games 7 women qualifiers: Teresa Bonvalot (POR), Yolanda Sequeira (POR), Leilani McGonagle (CRC), Daniella Rosas (PER), Mahina Maeda (JPN), Amuro Tsuzuki (JPN), Pauline Ado (FRA)
2021 World Surfing Games 4 men qualifiers: Lucca Mesinas (PER), Miguel Tudela (PER), Manuel Selman (CHI), Leon Glatzer (GER)
Japan’s Shun Murakami and Hiroto Ohhara to determine final slot still up for grabs
Reallocation slots awarded to Dominic Barona (ECU), Sofia Mulanovich (PER) Rio Waida (INA), and Leandro Usuna (ARG)
Team Japan takes the lead heading into final day, followed by Team France, Peru, and Portugal
Individual and Team Gold Medalists to be crowned on Sunday
17 Olympic Surfing countries underline ISA’s successful push for universality
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The penultimate day of action at the 2021 Surf City El Salvador ISA World Surfing Games featured a flurry of Olympic qualification at the break of La Bocana.
39 of the 40 Olympic surfers have officially been confirmed for Surfing’s Olympic debut next month at Tokyo 2020. The 40 qualified surfers will hail from 17 different countries, a display of the universality of the sport that has been a central part of the ISA’s mission to make a better world through Surfing.
The 2021 ISA World Surfing Games awards slots to the highest ranking eligible 5 men and 7 women – 11 of which were decided on Saturday.
The 7 women’s slots were claimed by Portugal’s Teresa Bonvalot and Yolanda Sequeira, Costa Rica’s Leilani McGonagle, Peru’s Daniella Rosas, Japan’s Mahina Maeda and Amuro Tsuzuki, and France’s Pauline Ado.
4 of the 5 men’s slots were earned by Germany’s Leon Glatzer, Peru’s Lucca Mesinas and Miguel Tudela, and Chile’s Manuel Selman.
The one men’s slot left up for grabs will be decided by two surfers: Japan’s Hiroto Ohhara and Shun Murakami. Both have advanced far enough to make it to finals day – Murakami in the Main Event and Ohhara in the Repechage.
Tokyo 2020 reallocation slots go to Argentine, Indonesian, Ecuadorian — lead to full squad for Team Peru
The qualification shake up on Saturday resulted in spots that had been provisionally earned in previous qualification events being reallocated to other surfers.
Given that both of the Lima 2019 Pan American Games Gold Medalists, Peru’s Mesinas and Rosas, both earned qualification through the 2021 World Surfing Games, a higher priority event, both of the Pan American Games slots have been reallocated to the Silver Medalists in the event.
Therefore, Argentina’s Leandro Usuna has been awarded the men’s slot from the Pan Ams, while Ecuador’s Dominic Barona has been awarded the women’s slot.
Given that the two Japanese men, Murakami and Ohhara, are competing to fill Japan’s final male slot, that means that the 2019 continental slot earned by Murakami at the 2019 World Surfing Games will be reallocated to the next eligible Asian surfer, which in this case is Indonesia’s Rio Waida.
In a stroke of fate, the 2019 ISA World Surfing Games Gold Medalist Sofia Mulanovich of Peru found her way into the Olympic Games after falling out of the event earlier this week. Due to the fact that Japan qualified two women at the 2021 World Surfing Games, the provisional slot earned by Japan’s Shino Matsuda at the 2019 World Surfing Games needed to be reallocated as well to the next eligible surfer in the event.
Given there was no eligible Asian woman in the top 30 ranking surfers to meet the quality control standard in the Olympic Qualification System, the slot was then given to the next ranking surfer of any continent, which was the Gold Medalist Mulanovich.
Mulanovich will now join a Team Peru that finds themselves with a full squad, maxing out their slots for 2 men and 2 women in Tokyo.
