2024 WSL Longboard World Tour Stacked With Talent This Year

The 2024 WSL Longboard World Tour is set to kick off on July 18 with its first event at Bells Beach, Australia. The four-stop tour will then head to Huntington Beach and wrap up with finals at El Sunzal in El Salvador for the first time. Stop three remains a mystery with a yet-to-be-announced location planned for late September.

With the qualifying series complete and the wildcards granted, there are some exciting new faces on the Tour. This year the roster will feature an American Samoan surfer for the first time – 21-year-old Sive Jarrard, who finished runner-up in the Locomotion Surf into Summer LQS event in Hawaii in late June, which was enough to qualify her for the World Tour.

“It feels surreal,” Siva said. “I come from a very strong Polynesian culture, we are known for having some of the best ocean navigators and voyagers so this connection I have with the ocean has a lot to do with the people who have come before me. I feel very close to those parts of my culture, really connected because of my surfing.”

“I just want to share this with my culture, share this with my people, to be that reminder that this is who we are, this is where we come from," Sive said. "We’re ocean people and I just don’t think anyone can take that away from us. It’s a blessing,”

Also requalifying is Japanese powerhouse Natsumi Taoka, who this year will be joined by Kai Hamase, the super smooth regular-footer from Shonan, qualifying for the first time since the longboard tour took on the new four-stop format.

The women’s side of the draw will also see British surfer Emily Currie join the ranks - the former European Champion competed in the single-stop tour in Taiwan in 2018 but this will be her first full season on the World Tour. The surfer from Bude had a dominant run in the European qualifiers with a second at Boardmasters in her home county of Cornwall – enough for her to claim a spot on Tour.

South Africa also has a new representative, with three-time South African national champion and stylish Durban surfer Sam Christianson edging out compatriot and 2018 World Champion Steven Sawyer in the first LQS event held in South Africa since 2018 in his hometown a few weeks ago. It was a high-scoring final with Christianson finishing with a heat total of 16.66 to Sawyer’s 16.53. Sawyer had already qualified for the 2024 Tour through his 10th-place finish on the 2023 World Tour.

These new faces will join the top 10 from the men’s and women’s tours who requalified from the 2023 Tour. Last year, both winners of the Bells event went on to win the World Title, with Californian Soleil Errico taking it out at her home break of Malibu. Hawaiian veteran Kai Sallas defeated Australian powerhouse Declan Wyton in the final at Bells and went on to claim victory at Malibu, 24 years after he first joined the World Tour. Fresh off a gold medal at the ISA World Longboard Championships in El Salvador, Sallas heads into this season with a target on his back.

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Hawaiian cousin duo Kelis Kaleopa’a and Kaniela Stewart will head into this season as two of the most dominant surfers to have not won a World Title in the last few years. In 2023, Kaniela won both the Huntington and El Salvador events but was defeated by Kai Sallas in the final heat at Malibu, finishing the year second. Kaleopa’a had a similar story last season – winning Huntington, claiming second in El Salvador but being edged out by Soleil Errico in the final heat. Kelis also finished second to Soleil the year prior.

The Longboard World Tour has grown in intensity in recent years, with each year bolstered by an influx of new talent that joins its ranks and pushes the veterans further and further. The multi-stop tour in quality, often powerful waves featuring the world’s best has given the longboard tour an exciting edge.

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