2024 WCT Class Confirmed
LOS ANGELES, Calif., USA (Wednesday, October 25, 2023) - Today, the World Surf League (WSL) Tours and Competition team confirmed the official competitor lists for the 2024 Championship Tour (CT) season. The 2024 WSL CT will feature the world’s best surfers, as determined by the top-ranking finishers on the 2023 CT and 2023 Challenger Series, as well as the season and event wildcards selected by the WSL Tours and Competition team.
“We’re excited to welcome and officially confirm the new class of Championship Tour competitors,” said Jessi Miley-Dyer, WSL Chief of Sport. “Last season, Caitlin Simmers made the Final 5, showing us what rookies are capable of. We’re excited to see the potential of this year’s rookie class and how they will rise to the occasion of competing against the best in the world."
The CT will once again feature the world's best surfers competing in fully integrated events across the CT calendar with equal prize money. The Tour will kick off the season at the world-renowned Banzai Pipeline, will see the Mid-season Cut at the season’s halfway point following Margaret River, and will conclude at the one-day WSL Finals, where the WSL Final 5 men and women will battle for the World Title.
The first five events of the 2024 Championship Tour will be contested by the Top 36 men and the Top 18 women. The Top 36 men consist of:
- The Top 22 finishers from the 2023 Championship Tour rankings
- The Top 10 finishers on the 2023 Challenger Series rankings
- Two WSL season wildcards
- Two event wildcards
The Top 18 women consist of:
- The Top 10 finishers on the 2023 Championship Tour rankings
- The Top five finishers on the 2023 Challenger Series rankings
- Two WSL season wildcards
- One event wildcard
Halfway through the season, the field will be reduced to 24 men and 12 women. The top-ranked surfers will automatically requalify for the 2025 CT, as well as continue to the second half of the Tour, where they will be joined by one men’s and one women’s season-long wildcard, and one men’s and one women’s event wildcard.
In addition to the WSL wildcards announced for the season, the WSL Tours and Competition team also assigned one WSL Replacement for men’s competitions and one WSL Replacement for women’s competitions. The WSL Replacement surfer will surf amongst the world’s best if a CT surfer withdraws from the competition.
The WSL Replacement positions will only be allocated in the first five stops of the season before the Mid-season Cut. The 2024 WSL Replacement surfers are Luana Silva (BRA) and Ramzi Boukhiam (MAR).
Women’s 2024 Championship Tour Qualifiers
Top 10 Qualifiers from 2023 Championship Tour Rankings
- Caroline Marks (USA)
- Carissa Moore (HAW)
- Tyler Wright (AUS)
- Caitlin Simmers (USA)
- Molly Picklum (AUS)
- Stephanie Gilmore (AUS)
- Lakey Peterson (USA)
- Tatiana Weston-Webb (BRA)
- Gabriela Bryan (HAW)
- Bettylou Sakura Johnson (HAW)
Top 5 Qualifiers from 2023 Challenger Series Rankings
- India Robinson (AUS)
- Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS)
- Sawyer Lindblad (USA)
- Alyssa Spencer (USA)
- Isabella Nichols (AUS)
WSL Season Wildcards
- Johanne Defay (FRA)
- Brisa Hennessy (CRC)
WSL Replacement
- Luana Silva (BRA)
Men’s 2024 Championship Tour Qualifiers
Top 22 Qualifiers from the 2023 Championship Tour Rankings
- Filipe Toledo (BRA)
- Ethan Ewing (AUS)
- Griffin Colapinto (USA)
- Joao Chianca (BRA)
- Jack Robinson (AUS)
- Gabriel Medina (BRA)
- Yago Dora (BRA)
- John John Florence (HAW)
- Leonardo Fioravanti (ITA)
- Ryan Callinan (AUS)
- Connor O’Leary (AUS)
- Barron Mamiya (HAW)
- Italo Ferreira (BRA)
- Kanoa Igarashi (JPN)
- Ian Gentil (HAW)
- Jordy Smith (RSA)
- Liam O’Brien (AUS)
- Caio Ibelli (BRA)
- Matthew McGillivray (RSA)
- Callum Robson (AUS)
- Rio Waida (INA)
- Seth Moniz (HAW)
Top 10 Qualifiers from the 2023 Challenger Series Rankings
- Cole Houshmand (USA)
- Samuel Pupo (BRA)
- Jacob Willcox (AUS)
- Crosby Colapinto (USA)
- Eli Hanneman (HAW)
- Imaikalani deVault (HAW)
- Frederico Morais (POR)
- Jake Marshall (USA)
- Kade Matson (USA)
- Deivid Silva (BRA)
WSL Season Wildcards
- Kelly Slater (USA)
- Miguel Pupo (BRA)
WSL Replacement
- Ramzi Boukhiam (MAR)
First Stop: Banzai Pipeline To Kickoff 2024 Championship Tour Season
The 2024 WSL Championship Tour will start at the Banzai Pipeline on Oahu, with a competition window from January 29 through February 10, 2024.
Comments
They had better get their school bags packed
YAWN
Yawn? Dude, Kelly is competing! If he is coincidently on a surf trip in the same location as the tour he might compete and drop a 17th… Kelly!!
Great to see Ramzi as the replacement, always a high chance of somebody getting an injury at some point so he should get a few starts.
Wsl acknowledging Ramzi ....just........should have Slaters or Miguels spot
100%
Totally agree Ramzi should have Slaters spot
Yep
Does the tour really need these guys?
Eli Hanneman (HAW)
Imaikalani deVault (HAW)
Frederico Morais (POR)
Jake Marshall (USA)
Kade Matson (USA)
Deivid Silva (BRA)
I'll take just Ramzi in return for the lot.
Eli Yes, the rest No
I suspect Eli H will get bundled out of the CT at the mid season cut. Talented, but not in the big boys' league.
I like Imaikalani deVault & Jake Marshall, but the other guys, definitely not.
I've banged on about this before but anyone new to this sport and looks at the list must go.........'is the is 1970's, why is there so many less women?'
How does this 'professional' sporting organization justify this?
The way things are, to increase the women's they'd either have to reduce the men's numbers or run the women's events separately, as they're already up against it in terms of running time vs swell.
Not sure the Woz has a taste for either option so the status quo is possibly the better choice for them.
Of course. I don't feel as though the tours need to be run in conjunction. I just think equal opportunity is deserved. Splitting the waiting periods / schedule probably should happen to facilitate this.
Yawn, we see your signalling and are very impressed.
You want to know what isn't equal, the general level of interest in professional surfing between the male and female public.
Its a business, not interschool sport.
Smorto, people like you have no interest in progressing to a point where we might have more equal levels of interest. Just accept it as the norm and move on right? Women can just suck it up like they always do. That's their place in the world.
The recent Women's World Cup in Soccer/Football proved that Women's sport can attract a huge level of interest under the right circumstances. I know surfing is not comparable to soccer in terms of the kind of audience it can bring and I will admit I frequently turn off or fail to tune in to the women's side of the event. But I put a lot of that down to WSL's choice to usually run the bulk of women's event in the worst waves of the period. I would be equally as happy to watch women having a dig in good barrels as I am in watching the men do the same.
I've said it before, flip a coin to start then run alternating M/W, no reason not to.
The women's NRL final was a cracking game too.
Agreed, and further, for me the womens heats at the pipe masters were by the most interesting.
I’m not a misogynist but…….
Haha yeah Solitude, the cliches keep on coming. The classic virtue signaller response when someone disagrees with them, call them names, usually ending with phobe or ist.
The world keeps moving forward.. only a few short months ago Solititude would have been name-called "woke" but we have progressed to a much more sophisticated yet equally generic and ill-informed insult "virtue signaller".
Not to mention the irony of calling someone a name then accusing them of name-calling.
A pretty arrogant and ignorant comment from you Smorto..but you do have form in that area.
Why is it signalling? I for one, find myself watching way more of the womens events than the mens these days. Given the choice of watching Yago, Sam Pupo, Rodriguez etc doing their pump pump spin....over watching serious progression each and every event from the women, women, who i reckon ooze way more style individually than the mens, i tend to lean towards the womens heats.
Does that make me woke or just someone who wants to watch something that i find interesting and fresh.
The mens tour, apart from a few obvious top 5-8 exceptions, is boring.
And if you're talking about it in purely business terms, who do you reckon moves more product? Kanoa selling boardshorts or Steph selling bikinis? You don't have to answer that if you're one of the ones that bought a Roxy bikini ;-)
It was pretty successfully marketed the equal pay (but half the competitors). But in reality there is nowhere near the depth of mens tour. Probably equally as marketable though to the world that doesn’t surf.
the women seriously lack depth of talent
Every reference to the final five concept deflates the excitement a little bit, but stoked for Ramzi
Go Sally!!
Antithesis of Tyler's post heat interviews.
Sure is
https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSNB32fXH/
Frother! Gotta love the attitude.
Too many dudes, not enough dudettes.
There is enough depth in women's surfing now to square up the numbers. 26 a piece.
Is there ?
Im not bagging the chicks, but paddle out into any line up and its not 50/50 ?
There is plenty of depth. It's 2023, no reason females shouldn't be given the same opportunities. Give it to them and watch their tour shine. As it is, only 5 girls can make the top grade from the lower ranks each year. A lot of rippers forced to wait in the wings.
A more pressing issue for the Tour is when is it going to stop losing money?
They make cuts to the events, to the waiting periods, to the number of surfers half way through the year, to save costs.
How are they going to pay for more women on tour?
Be happy to see the mens tour shrink to meet the woman’s. No need to over-inflate the scene anymore. Think of poor freeride having to watch it.
Slater should pull the pin, he’s the GOAT yada yada but very high probability he’s missed any sort of dignified retirement in fact it’ll only get worse. That plus Ramzi should just be on tour, really why is slater doing it? There’s nothing left to prove and he’s just leaving a sour taste now
When he kept re-qualifying it was weird that people wanted him to retire. But it feels like he should have just been given a few event wildcards after he failed to requalify.
Agreed I think the first response (ie when he requalified) was just an auto response as really until the last ten years all sports (maybe not golf) mid 30’s is super old! But now it’s result based
They should transition to post-cut numbers for the whole year, 24 & 12.
The comps are bloated with irrational starting numbers, and they continue to lose money, and are forced to surf way too many heats in junk surf.
And get rid of the 'finals'. It's a farce.
I actually like the new format
The challenger series, the cut. The query.....
I also Surf quads rather than thrusters ...call me progressive.
Surfing needs change, I've been watching comp for almost 40 years.
Wasn’t sure if you were serious until you said quads.
I'm not over the top about the final 5.
You could just have Trestles as the final stop of the year. Crown the champ there.
I'm sure most competitors would appreciate that.
andino gone! (no tears here)
i wish jacko was there - he's a bit stiff not to have made it imho, and much more watchable than those mentioned by ib above.
When is anyone going to call the American storm? The top 15 women is USA v AUS except for Tati, who is pretty much American. There are more American men than any other national representative as well. I get the Woz separates HAW and USA, but they're all yanks in an Olympic year.
It seems to be something flying under the radar but American surfers by numbers are dominating the women's and men's comps.
For sure starting to resemble the tour of the early days. Lots of yanks and Aussies. Seems despite the challenger series being fairly diverse in terms of regions, it’s not translating to the CT as of yet
By numbers sure, but definitely not by tour victories. Brazilian storm still going strong in the mens, with the yanks a million miles behind.
How does Kellys performance last season warrant a place this season ? I'd much rather listen to Kelly break down heats performances and boards .....I guess i'm not the target market ?!
I don’t think WSL even knows who its target market is. Kelly is the GOAT but he’s also older than most teenagers parents and as such isn’t really on their radar. To them he’s the old guy that used to be good and has just always been on the tour. He’s no longer the surfer who’s absolutely pushing the boundaries and creating that new level of performance. Wish I could surf half as good as him, and I would tune in and watch heats he is commentating on because he is soooooo informative.
They put him in cos their web traffic doubles when he surfs, otherwise the numbers would be dismal :)
https://www.theinertia.com/surf/john-john-florence-wsl-finals-pipeline/