What is the competition format?
A total of 40 athletes (20 men and 20 women) will compete, broken down into multiple rounds, eventually leading to gold and bronze medal finals.
The initial rounds will have four and five-person heats, and the main rounds (round 3 onwards) will have two-person heats, where the winner advances to the next round and the loser is eliminated.
The top two surfers from each heat in round 1 will advance directly to round 3. The bottom two surfers will move onto round 2, which acts as essentially as a 'repechage’ or ‘second chance’ round. The top three surfers in each heat will advance to round 3, where surfers are seeded into a bracket using their results from the first two rounds, as well as their world ranking.