Surfing makes long-awaited Olympics debut at Tokyo 2020

Brazil’s Italo Ferreira and American Carissa Moore emerge victorious in the first Surfing heats at the Tokyo Games.

Under blue skies and a blazing sun, surfing made its Olympic debut on Sunday, more than a century after Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku first pushed for its inclusion at the Games. The action began early at Tsurigasaki Surfing Beach, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Tokyo, with the first surfers paddling out in favourable wave conditions. Brazil’s Italo Ferreira, the 2019 world champion, who learned to surf standing on the foam box his father sold fish from, caught the first wave as the men’s heats got under way.