Surfing: there will be shortboards and longboards at the 2019 World Beach Games | Photo: Reed/ISA

The inaugural 2019 World Beach Games will feature five board-and-water sports disciplines.

The event announced by the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) will take place at Mission Beach, in San Diego, California, from October 10-15.

The final list of sports features 15 sports and 17 disciplines, including shortboard surfing, longboard surfing, kiteboarding, wakeboarding, and waterski.

The organizers decided to remove stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) from the list revealed last year but denied pressures from the International Canoe Federation (ICF), who has a dispute with the International Surfing Association (ISA) over the ruling of the sport.

The shortboard and longboard surfing competitions will gather a total of 96 athletes. There will be 40 foil racers flying their kites, as well as 48 wakeboard and waterski experts.

The 2019 World Beach Games expect around 1,300 athletes from 100 countries and 400,000 spectators. The event will cost approximately $40 million, and admission to most disciplines will be free of charge.

Surfing will make its Olympic debut one year later in Tokyo 2020, while kiteboarding expected to join the Olympic movement in Paris 2024.

ANOC hopes that the World Beach Games become a bi-yearly event, held between the winter and summer Olympics.

Top Stories

On March 7, 2024, Cloudbreak delivered one of the most epic swells in Fiji's big wave surfing history.

Is there any correlation between warmer or colder ocean waters and bigger waves? What is the influence of temperature on wave height?

It's one of the world's most out-of-the-radar big waves and certainly one of the most exciting surf breaks in Latin America and the South Pacific. Bienvenidos a El Buey.

Surfing is all about working the unbroken wave face and maximizing riding time. But how can you optimize and balance these two goals that cancel each other out?