Revealed: The 2024 Olympic Surfing Judging Panel

Get everything you need to know about the 2024 Teahupo’o Olympics here.

In an official and cutely designed PDF sent to the federations of the 21 nations with surfing teams in next week’s Paris Tahiti 2024 Olympics, the IOC has revealed its International Technical Officials, or ITOS in Olympese.

Hawaiian Richard Pierce Jr., the Head Judge at ISA surfing, will join Luli Pereira, also Head Judge and Director of Officiating at WSL, as Head Judges at the event. Pierce retains the role he was assigned for surfing’s inaugural Olympic appearance in Japan. Luli, who was part of the Tokyo Olympics judging panel, gets a promotion in his second appearance at the games.

Aside from Kiwi Daniel Kosoof and Australian Benjamin Lowe (known as Judge #4 by Brazilian media and accused — with very little evidence — of bringing out the fork on Gabriel Medina), a seven-man judging panel will fill the hollows of the new judging tower at the end of the road in Tahiti Iti.

Tatsuya Fukagawa (JPN), Thierry Vidal (FRA), Tory Gilkerson (USA), Mikel Zalacain (ESP), and Luiz Dantas (BRA) will be making their Olympic judging debuts. As for priority decisions, these will be made by Marcel Miranda (BRA) and Ian Buchanan (NZL), both going into their second edition of the games.

The ITOS team also consists of Surfline meteorologists Kevin Wallis and Kurt Korte from the USA, as well as a broad cast of characters including announcers, beach marshals, tabulators, spotters, a (priority) disc operator, and Xavier de Longeaux, a French surfboard repairer who shall not remain nameless.

With a leadership structure akin to ISA events — and same as Tokyo 2020 — Erik Krammer (USA) will be heading the team as its Technical Director, and Marcos ‘Bukão’ Carneiro Esmanhoto from Brazil will be the Contest Director.

Scoop the whole thing here, but don’t tell the IOC where you got it from.