LOS ANGELES, Calif., USA (Friday, February 23, 2024) - Today, the World Surf League (WSL) announces the 2024 WSL Longboard Tour schedule. The WSL Longboard Tour celebrates traditional lines of surfing with updated and progressive approaches and crowns the men's and women's Longboard World Champions each season.
"It's great to see the continued growth of the WSL Longboard Tour," said Jessi Miley-Dyer, WSL Chief of Sport. "We premiered the new one-day Finals format last season on the Longboard Tour and are excited to bring that back in 2024, this time in El Salvador. With the new structure, we hope to continue to offer more opportunities for our surfers, and we'll continue that approach this season. For the 2024 schedule, we're excited to announce details of three of the four events and will share more details about Stop No. 3 soon."
The 2024 Longboard Tour will feature four international events between July and October, starting at Bells Beach, Australia, and followed by Huntington Beach, California. The third event will take place in September and the location and exact dates will be announced in the coming months. The WSL Longboard Championship will take place in El Salvador in October.
2024 WSL Longboard Tour Schedule:
- Bioglan Bells Beach Longboard Classic (Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia): July 18 - 21, 2024
- Huntington Beach Longboard Classic (Huntington Beach, Calif., USA): August 3 - 11, 2024 (Longboard division will be August 3 - 6 to allow Olympic athletes time to travel from Tahiti to the US Open of Surfing)
- Stop No. 3 - Location and Specific Dates to be announced: September 2024
- Surf City El Salvador Longboard Championships (El Sunzal, El Salvador): October 9 - 13, 2024
El Salvador to Host Longboard Championships, Continuation of One-Day Format to Crown 2024 Longboard World Titles
The first three events will count towards qualifying for the fourth and final event, the Longboard Championship in El Salvador. The Top 8 men and Top 8 women on the rankings after Stop No. 3 will earn a place in the WSL Longboard Championship, a one-day, winner-take-all event, which will determine the Longboard World Champions. Like the WSL Championship Tour Finals format, competitors will be seeded into brackets determined by their rankings and the winners will be crowned the 2024 Champions.
El Sunzal in El Salvador returns to the 2024 schedule, but this time to decide the WSL Longboard Champions. A pristine right-hand cobblestone break, El Sunzal previously showcased world-class performances in 2023 as the penultimate stop on the Longboard Tour. It will host the Finals event within the window of October 9 through 13, 2024.
Longboard Tour Qualification Process for 2024
The 2024 WSL Longboard Tour will host 24 men and 24 women. Each 24-person field will be made up of the following: Top 10 competitors from the 2023 Longboard Tour, 7 surfers selected from the WSL Regions (with at least one qualifying event per region), and 5 seasonal wildcards, Two event wildcards, selected by the WSL Tours and Competition team.
The 2023 WSL Longboard Tour ended in World Title glory for Soleil Errico (USA) and Kai Sallas (HAW) at the Original Sprout Malibu Longboard Championships Presented by Tractor Beverage Co. Errico's win saw her claim back-to-back World Titles, her career-third World Title, and for Sallas, it was a maiden World Title.
For more information, please visit WorldSurfLeague.com.