Surfers to catch manmade waves on road to Olympic debut

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Kelly Slater claims he has no “home wave” advantage at the Surf Ranch he co-founded in California’s Central Valley, where many of the world’s top surfers will compete Thursday through Saturday in the Freshwater Pro presented by Outerknown, the penultimate U.S. contest before the sport makes its Olympic debut next summer.

All the surfers will be catching the same wave at the manmade lake in Lemoore, some 100 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The Freshwater Pro is a stop on the World Surf League’s Championship Tour, whose men’s and women’s rankings are used for Olympic qualification.

Slater said it’s not necessarily an advantage that he helped develop the technology used at the Surf Ranch, which was purchased by the WSL in 2016.

“You would think so, but it’s really not,” Slater said by phone Wednesday. “It’s not a hard wave for anyone to figure out, if they surf to their potential. It’s a wave that’s very repetitive. There’s no anomalous stuff. It comes down to skill level and how you perform. That’s the idea behind the technology of the repeatable wave, is everyone has the capability to perform, whereas in the ocean, whoever gets the best wave wins.”

The U.S. Olympic team will include the top two men and top two women in the WSL rankings at the conclusion of the 2019 tour.

Slater of Cocoa Beach, Florida, is ranked 10th overall and fourth among American men. John Florence of Oahu’s North Shore, ranked No. 5 overall and second among the Americans, is injured and his return is uncertain.