WSL Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer Breaks Down the 2024 Tour Schedule
J-Bay and Surf Ranch eliminated
Cloudbreak returns
All eyes on Teahupo’o with summer break to accommodate Olympics
Fourth-annual WSL Finals to run at Trestles
Having crowned Caroline Marks and Filipe Toledo world champions earlier this month, the WSL is already preparing for its next whirlwind world tour. The combined men’s and women’s tour with equal pay and shared venues continues. It will start at Pipeline and finish in San Clemente once again, a move triggering speculation about the fate of those stars who haven’t fared so well at Lowers. J-Bay is getting the axe, along with a certain controversial freshwater venue, in favor of bringing back a powerful Fijian left. And the year will revolve around the Olympics, where surfers will get a chance to perform on a true world stage. Here’s Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer’s take on all the action we can expect in 2024.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
One thing that I'm really happy to see continue in 2024 is the combined tour with equal pay and equal venues. What results are you seeing unfold as the women rise to the occasion to take advantage of this platform?
Being in the very best locations, you see the performance. They're all tackling Pipeline, and then Tahiti — for us to be there and to have space in the lineup is really important. I really love that the next generation of both boys and girls who are growing up watching the tour will always see those waves as being the women’s waves as well in a way that, you know, people like myself didn’t look at Pipeline and think of it as being our spot. You watch all of this next generation of kids — they're already surfing Pipe. I have had quite a few people send their edits of them getting barreled.
One area of continued discussion in the equality conversation is the disparity in the number of competitors on the men’s versus the women’s CT. There are 36 spots on the men’s CT and only 18 on the women’s before the mid-year cut, then down to 24 and 12. Can you share some context about why that is, and if there are plans to expand the women’s tour in the future?
Look, I think that it's important that we are very vocal about making some big steps for the women around prize money and venues, but also in recognizing that there's more work to be done. I think that we're super optimistic about the future. When we have more to share there, we will. But yeah, I mean, at the moment, we've had the 36 and the 18. I think recognizing that there is more work to be done and that it’s not finished is important.
Tahiti is the star of the show. Image: WSL/Dunbar
The big changes to the 2024 schedule are losing J-Bay and Surf Ranch while bringing back Cloudbreak. Why Cloudbreak, and what excites you about this venue?
Cloudbreak is one of the events that people always ask for because it's such a dream. For us to have the left is important as well. We have a lot of surfers who have been asking to go left. We haven't been there for almost a decade now. So to have Fiji back is awesome.
With J-Bay, it's all around the Olympics. When you look at the last Olympic cycle and how back-to-back that scheduling is, there were parts that overlapped, and it puts a lot of pressure on the athletes. So we've been really intentional about being thoughtful for them, how we can make sure they have opportunities to compete at their very best for both our championship also for the Olympics, because the Olympics is a great thing for us. I'm excited for them to get to go. We’ve really been thoughtful about making sure that we’ve arranged the tour this year with all the athletes in mind.
All eyes will be on Teahupo’o in 2024, and lot of people think of XXL waves when we think about Chopes. What kind of conditions are you hoping for in both the May CT stop and the Olympics in the summer?
You want to be a little bit out of your comfort zone in some ways, and that's how we're all going to continue to progress and get better in all aspects of life. When you push yourself in those moments, you see how you're going to navigate. You want it to be a little bit overhead so that you can have the chance to take some big ones, but I don't want us to be there and be having really crazy scary conditions, because that's not the name of the game in progressing. Every year we’re there, everyone's going to get more experience. And we're going to continue to progress and get better as a group.
Obviously, there's some people who have spent a lot of time there. Someone like Vahine [Fierro], you see how comfortable she is at the wave. She lives there, she’s catching some crazy ones in the free surfs. So for us to continue to progress in those kinds of waves is a really cool thing. We did a WSL Rising Tides in Tahiti, and I feel like that's almost one of my favorite ones. You have these really young girls who were paddling out. We actually closed the lineup as well, so they had the chance to kind of sit there and pick waves in a way that maybe you don’t have in a free surf. It's hard to create space for yourself. One of the girls, she was just 11. To be that fierce at 11 years old, I reckon, is rad. And I think it'll be really cool to look at in 10 years’ time or so.
Some people have advocated for holding the Finals at Pipe, while others say Trestles is a great equalizer. Why is Trestles the way to go for crowning champions?
I think Trestles has been a really solid competition site. It's a peak, we know it's consistent, there's great opportunities to either go left or right and to kind of pick what you want to do on the wave in some ways. So for us to be able to have something like that, that's fair and consistent, is really important. But I like Trestles. I think it's been amazing for us the last three years.
FULL SCHEDULE: 2024 WSL CHAMPIONSHIP TOUR
Banzai Pipeline, Hawaii, USA: January 29 - February 10
Sunset Beach, Hawaii, USA: February 12 - 23
Peniche, Portugal: March 6 - 16
Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia: March 26 - April 5
Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia: April 11 - 21
Mid-season Cut: 36-man and 18-woman fields reduced to 24-man and 12-woman fields
Teahupo'o, Tahiti, French Polynesia: May 22 - 31
Punta Roca, El Salvador: June 6 - 15
Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: June 22 - 30
2024 Paris Olympic Games: July 26 - August 11 (Surfing scheduled between July 27 - August 5)
Cloudbreak, Fiji: August 20 - 29
WSL Final 5 determined to battle for World Titles
WSL Finals (Lower Trestles, San Clemente, Calif., USA): September 6 - 14
