Surf City, El-Salvador — Mexico’s Alan Cleland and Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb won the men’s and women’s world titles at the 2023 ISA World Surfing Games, while Peru emerged as the top-scoring team overall. Kanoa Igarashi and Kauli Vaast landed the remaining two Olympic qualification spots available through the competition.
The men’s competition came down to Alan Cleland (MEX), Kanoa Igarashi (JPN), Lucca Mesinas (PER) and Miguel Tudela (PER). Cleland, 21, nabbed one of the biggest wins of his career in the final, concluding a strong tournament overall as he carded three of the top-ten highest scores of the comp.
“It means everything. It’s something that I’ve worked for and put my time in since I started surfing and something that I wanted,” Cleland said.
“It’s something that I strived (for), I dreamed, I put all my work into it. It came true and I can’t stop smiling. I’m just grateful.”
This result qualifies Cleland for the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, which brings him one step closer to qualifying for the Olympics.
Kauli Vaast, a tube-riding wizard from the Olympic surf venue of Teahupo’o, just missed the finals but took the sole 2024 Games spot for the highest finishing male representing Europe at the International Surfing Association (ISA) event.
The 21-year-old joins fellow Teahupo’o local Vahine Fierro to form a formidable French team along with Johanne Defay, who had already qualified through the professional World Surf League (WSL) championship tour.
“To have the chance to be in the Olympics at home, it was a big dream for me,” Vaast said. “I did everything to make it and now I´m in, I´m super-stoked. I made it.”
Teahupo’o is one of the world’s heaviest and most challenging waves, where swells lurch out of deep water onto a shallow coral reef.
Vaast and Fierro finished second and third, respectively, at the WSL contest at Teahupo’o last year, both beating world and event champions along the way.
The top 10 men and eight women at the end of this year’s WSL tour will take the first 18 of 48 spots available for Olympics, with the remaining spots decided through various ISA competitions.
South Africans Jordy Smith and Sarah Baum, New Zealanders Saffi Vette and Billy Stairmand, and Japan’s Shino Matsuda and Tokyo silver medallist Kanoa Igarashi have also provisionally qualified from the El-Salvador event.
Weston-Webb and Defay have already qualified through the WSL world tour, along with Brisa Hennessy from Costa Rica and Portugal’s Teresa Bonvalot.
“It’s such an honor to be in this position,” Igarashi said of his second go at gold.
“The Olympics changed my life and to be here again in a position where I can go there and represent my country and try to get another medal, it means the world to me.”
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