WSL Expands Longboard Tour
The World Surf League announced its 2026 Longboard Tour schedule, expanding to four stops and introducing a new World Title format. The tour kicks off in Huntington Beach, California, reflecting growing global interest in longboard competition. Additionally, a new Olympic qualification system could open doors for legends like Kelly Slater and John John Florence to make another Olympic run in 2028.
The 2026 Longboard Tour's new format scraps the previous one-day, winner-take-all championship. Instead, the world champion will be the surfer with the most points accumulated across all four events. This change mirrors the format shift on the main WSL Championship Tour, which also eliminated its controversial single-day finals format for the 2026 season. The tour introduces a new stop at Monaliza Point in La Union, Philippines, a world-class right-hand wave that has previously hosted international longboard and junior events. This marks a location change from the 2025 tour, which included a stop in Abu Dhabi. The other three stops for the 2026/2027 season are Huntington Beach, Bells Beach in Australia, and the final event in El Sunzal, El Salvador. While billed as an expansion, the four-stop schedule continues a recent trend. The Longboard Tour featured three events in 2022 before moving to a four-event structure in 2023, 2024, and 2025. The final event in El Salvador will feature a reduced field, with only the top 12 men and 12 women competing for an increased 15,000 rankings points. Recent Longboard World Champions include Rachael Tilly (USA) and Kai Ellice-Flint (AUS) in 2025, and Soleil Errico (USA) and Kai Sallas (HAW) in 2023. Errico claimed her third world title in 2023, while Sallas won his first at the age of 42. The new Olympic qualification system for LA 2028 reduces the number of athletes who can qualify through the professional WSL Championship Tour (CT). Only the top five eligible surfers per gender on the 2028 CT will qualify, with a maximum of one per country, a change that has been criticized by some professional surfers. This revised system creates alternative paths to the Olympics, potentially benefiting athletes not on the Championship Tour. Surfers can now qualify through strong performances at the ISA World Surfing Games or continental championships like the Pan American Games. For American surfers, only one man and one woman can qualify through the WSL CT rankings. This leaves two additional spots for each gender open through other events, creating opportunities for legends like Kelly Slater, who will be 56, and John John Florence, who has been away from the tour, to represent the USA without needing to requalify for and compete a full CT season.
