While Team GB won’t be catching any waves this year, there’s plenty to look forward to as the sport of surfing make its Olympic debut <\/p>
Surfing is one of five sports which will be making their debut at the Olympics 2020<\/a>, having been included in the Games for the first time \u2013 and the world\u2019s top surfers will be taking to their boards this July in a bid to win the sport\u2019s first-ever Olympic medals. Gnarly.<\/p>\n The competition will take place in Japan, at Shidashita Beach in Chiba (on Tokyo Bay).<\/p>\n RadioTimes.com<\/a> brings you up to speed with everything you need to know about surfing at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo in the summer of 2021.<\/p>\n The men\u2019s and women\u2019s shortboard competitions are set to take place over four days between Sunday 25th July<\/strong> and Sunday <\/strong>1st August<\/strong>, depending on wave conditions \u2013 but at the moment we\u2019re looking at 26th-29th July<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Check out our guide on how to watch Olympics 2020<\/a> or see Olympics on TV today<\/a> for more details, timings, and exclusive expert analysis from some of the biggest names in world sport over the coming weeks.<\/p>\n Sir Chris Hoy, Beth Tweddle, Rebecca Adlington, Matthew Pinsent and Dame Jess Ennis-Hill are among the stars we have to being their esteemed opinions, so don\u2019t miss what they have to say.<\/p>\n Team GB will not be competing in Olympic surfing at the Tokyo Olympics. The qualifiers were held at four international competitions between 2019 and June 2021, but the British hopefuls\u00a0did not place high enough to win a spot.<\/p>\n There are only 17 participating nations for this event, including Australia, Brazil, Japan, the United States, Peru and Portugal \u2013 and that\u2019s based on the nationalities of the individual competitors who qualified.<\/p>\n In total, 40 surfers are competing; these include 20 men and 20 women. The maximum for each nation is four surfers, but some nations are represented by just one or two competitors.<\/p>\n Look out for Brazil\u2019s\u00a0Gabriel Medina<\/strong>, who is a two-time world champion; he has made it to four out of the five finals of the 2021 World Surf League men\u2019s season so far, leading to two victories.<\/p>\n The Brazilian team also boast reigning men\u2019s world champion Italo Ferreira<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Team USA are also likely to make a splash, led by four-time world champion Carissa Moore\u00a0<\/strong>in the women\u2019s surfing and by\u00a0John John Florence\u00a0<\/strong>in the men\u2019s. Florence has been struggling with a string of injuries in recent years, but he\u2019s also a two-time men\u2019s world champion \u2013 and he\u2019s expected to perform well.<\/p>\n Naturally, Australia are sending surfers to the Olympics, including Stephanie<\/strong> Gilmore, who has seven world titles already.<\/p>\n And Japan have a medallist hopeful in the form of Kanoa Igarashi. <\/strong><\/p>\n Other surfers taking on the Olympics include\u00a0Caroline Marks<\/strong> and Kolohe Andino <\/strong>(USA), and Owen Wright, Julian Wilson<\/strong> and Sally Fitzgibbons<\/strong> (Australia). Host country Japan are sending Hiroto Ohhara, Mahina Maeda\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Amuro Tsuzuki.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n France are sending a full team of four, made up of Jeremy Flores, Michel Bourez, Pauline Ado\u00a0<\/strong>and Johanne Defay.<\/strong> Peru are represented by Daniella Rosas, Lucca Mesinas, Sofia Mulanovich\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Miguel Tudela.<\/strong><\/p>\n They\u2019ll be joined by Tatiana Weston-Webb <\/strong>and Silvana Lima <\/strong>(Brazil), Brisa Hennessy\u00a0<\/strong>and Leilani McGonagle<\/strong> (Costa Rica),\u00a0Jordy Smith\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Bianca Buitendag\u00a0<\/strong>(South Africa),\u00a0Billy Stairmand\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Ella Williams\u00a0<\/strong>(New Zealand), and a team of three from Portugal:\u00a0Frederico Morais, Teresa Bonvalot,\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Yolanda Sequeria.<\/strong><\/p>\n Then there are those who will be flying the flag for their nations by themselves: Rio Waida\u00a0<\/strong>(Indonesia), Ramzi Boukhiam\u00a0<\/strong>(Morocco),\u00a0 Leandro Usuna\u00a0<\/strong>(Argentina), \u00a0Anat Lelior<\/strong> (Israel), Dominic Barona<\/strong> (Ecuador), Leon Glatzer <\/strong>(Germany).<\/p> Seeing as this is the first year that surfing has been included at all, the event is limited to shortboarding. In future Olympics, it\u2019s possible they will also include events for longboarding, stand-up paddleboarding, and bodyboarding.<\/p>\n A judging process has been devised to keep things as objective as possible. The panel consists of five judges, who are well-qualified to analyse the athletes\u2019 performances; they\u2019ll score each wave on a scale of one to 10, with two decimal places. A perfect ride is 10 points.<\/p>\n For each wave, the judges\u2019 highest and lowest scores will be discarded, so they\u2019ll be given the average of the middle three judges\u2019 scores. There is no limit to the number of waves a rider can catch, but at the end of their heat (20-35 minutes depending on surf conditions) the scores for their two highest-scoring waves will be combined for an overall total out of 20. Still with us?<\/p>\n As for what the judges will be looking for, there are five criteria:<\/p>\n Radio Times Olympics Special issue<\/a> is on sale now.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you\u2019re looking for something else to watch check out our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>\u00a0or visit our\u00a0Sport<\/a>\u00a0hub for all the latest news.<\/strong><\/p>\n While Team GB won’t be catching any waves this year, there’s plenty to look forward to as the sport of surfing make its Olympic debut <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":2120,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules.jpg",620,413,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules.jpg",620,413,false],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules.jpg",620,413,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules.jpg",620,413,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/07\/surfing-at-the-olympics-gb-team-and-rules.jpg",620,413,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"While Team GB won't be catching any waves this year, there's plenty to look forward to as the sport of surfing make its Olympic debut","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/2119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}When is surfing at the Olympics?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Which Team GB athletes will compete in Olympic surfing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Which surfers are competing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What are the rules of Olympic surfing?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"