O.C. Surfing Contest: Trial of Olympic Proportions

For the next nine days, Surf City becomes its namesake sport’s guardian angel, as surfing makes a bid to become an Olympic event.

With the start of the World Surfing Games today, surfing comes under the microscope of the International Olympic Committee, which will examine the week’s activities to help determine if the sport belongs at the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

This year’s World Surfing Games, the largest surfing competition in history, were originally scheduled to be held in South Africa. But the site of the biennial event was switched to Huntington Beach about 1 1/2 years ago after officials from the International Surfing Assn. determined the games could be a proving ground for the sport.

“It was important to move to Huntington Beach because we needed to bring the event to the culture of surfing,” said Fernando Aguerre, ISA’s chairman, who has worked relentlessly the past two years to get surfing into the Olympics.

“Everything is right here in Southern California: the manufacturing, the media and key organizations like the ISA, the ASP [Assn. of Surfing Professionals] and SIMA [Surf Industry Manufacturing Assn.]. So it seemed natural to move the competition to Huntington Beach,” Aguerre said.

San Clemente surfer Geoff Moysa, who will represent the U.S. team in longboarding, says the World Surfing Games are the most important of his career.

“It’s because of the Olympics,” said Moysa, 21. “To be able to help get my sport into the Olympics makes me very proud.

“This is our chance to show the IOC what surfing is all about. It’s our chance to show that we are athletes.”

Ian McPhillips, who just missed qualifying for the U.S. team, says the Huntington Beach event is a perfect opportunity to show the world surfing is not what many imagine.

“I practice about five hours a day, and when I’m not surfing, I’m working in the gym,” said McPhillips, 19. “I’m just as serious about my sport as, say, a marathon runner or basketball player.”

Aguerre is well aware of the uphill battle surfing faces, but he remains optimistic.

“When I met IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch in Switzerland in June, it was supposed to be a 15-minute meeting,” Aguerre said. “It turned into an hour, and we discussed many things. After the meeting, I came away feeling very positive.”

Aguerre said Samaranch seemed very interested in surfing and issued orders for an IOC representative to attend the World Surfing Games. In addition, Samaranch ordered a special IOC President’s Prize to be awarded in Huntington Beach.

*

The World Surfing Games bring together 600 athletes from 40 nations for contests in surfing, bodyboarding, longboarding and kneeboarding.

The event is patterned after the Olympics. Prizes, not money, will be awarded, and surfers will be competing for their countries instead of themselves. The World Surfing Games even feature opening ceremonies today on Main Street and a parade of nations.

“The fact that there will be IOC officials here to watch and the importance of this event make me proud that Surf City is a part of this,” Huntington Beach Mayor Dave Sullivan said.

James Easton, the IOC’s representative, admitted he doesn’t have much experience in surfing--his expertise is archery--but said he will go into the event with an open mind.

“You have to understand that the Olympic Games are so big,” Easton said. “There are so many [sports] that want to be a part of it. There are some sports that have waited 20 to 30 years to be part of the Games, so it can be a long process.”

In addition, Easton said, surfing as an Olympic event poses some unique problems.

“Because of factors like the need to be near an ocean and the possibilities of poor surf conditions, that could be a problem for Olympic officials,” he said.

Steve Hawk, editor of San Juan Capistrano-based Surfer Magazine, echoed Easton’s concerns.

“[Olympic officials] are used to dealing with some sports where the elements have some influence on the outcome,” Hawk said. “But for surfing, there is no other sport that is [more] subject to the whims of Mother Nature.

“Surfing in the Olympics would have the potential for great pride in the sport, but then again, it has the potential to cause great embarrassment.”

Easton will be watching the World Surfing Games with an Olympic-sized checklist.

“We have to show [the IOC] how the event is logistically run, the opening ceremonies, how we’ll stage the event, how TV- and youth-friendly the sport is, what kind of housing there will be for the athletes and how the food is administered to the athletes,” Aguerre said. “We have to educate them about the judging. Is [the judging] fair?”

Easton said he will file a report at the end of the event. The IOC is expected to make a decision on officially accepting the sport at its annual congress in the spring of 1997. The list of sports to be contested in Sydney then will be finalized.

Easton said Australia has filed a preliminary list of sports to the IOC that does not include surfing. The two new sports are taekwondo and triathlon. However, surfing could be added if it garners IOC approval and Australia decides to include it before the spring deadline.

*

It’s no secret Australia has a fondness for surfing: It’s one of the country’s biggest sports. Surfing Australia, the country’s governing surfing body, is even a member of the Australian Olympic Committee.

That’s not the case in the United States. Surfing has yet to be recognized by the U.S. Olympic Committee, which requires one governing body for the sport. There are a variety of organizations and associations in the United States that control surfing, bodyboarding and kneeboarding. On Monday, many of those groups’ leaders will gather in Huntington Beach to discuss how to meet the USOC requirement.

Despite the surfing community’s best efforts, it might not be enough to reach the Olympics.

“The word on the street is that Australia wants to downsize their games,” said Terry McCann, a San Clemente resident who won a gold medal in wrestling in 1960. An avid surfer, he is on the USOC’s membership and credential committee.

“They couldn’t handle the Atlanta Games as we saw it. There were just too many sports and too many people. So I would be surprised if surfing were to make it into the Sydney Olympics. But with that said, one can never tell what the IOC will do.

“However, I think if surfing ever had a chance of getting into the Olympics, the Sydney Games would be its best shot.”

For any sport to reach Olympic status, it must complete four steps:

* Provisional recognition, which is earned when at least 75 countries participate in the sport. Surfing has achieved this, along with sports such as karate, rugby and ballroom dancing.

* Official recognition, which occurs when a sport proves it can draw large numbers of international athletes and spectators to its world championships and other multinational competitions.

The World Surfing Games will go a long way toward taking this step. “We’ve staged hundreds of events, including large ones like the U.S. Open, which attracted about 70,000 people [to Huntington Beach] for the weekend of the finals [in August],” said Ian Cairns, director of U.S. Surfing and site director for the World Surfing Games. “I don’t think staging this event will present any problems.”

* Provisional acceptance, which means the sport is contested at the Olympics on a trial basis. If surfing were to reach this step, according to Aguerre, it would then have to receive high television ratings and attract large crowds to its venue if it wanted to remain on the Olympic schedule.

* Official acceptance.

The four steps are the guidelines for the majority of sports. However, some have been included in the Olympics as offshoots of official Olympic events.

*

Despite the drive for Olympic recognition by surfing’s organized leadership, some observers, including Hawk, aren’t sure the principles of surfing fit in well with the Olympic ideal.

“There is the professional side of me, who thinks it would be good for the sport as a sport,” Hawk said. “It would legitimize something I have been doing all my life. It would allow those who do it [to receive] the recognition that they deserve as athletes, rather than as a bunch of airheads who spit out saltwater.

“At the same time, there is the surfer inside of me that sees the whole Olympic machine as something that runs counter to everything that surfing stands for, which is dependency on the elements, flexibility and the fun, with no regard for competition.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Surfing Contest

What: World Surfing Games

Where: Huntington Beach Pier

When: Today through Oct. 13

Time: Parade of Nations begins at 9:30 a.m. today, opening ceremonies at 10 a.m. and competition at noon. Subsequent daily competitions begin at 8 a.m.

Cost: Free to the public; however, parking will be difficult

Internet: https://

www.telepac.pt/isa--wsg96