Surfing
Surface water sport riding waves on a board.
Surfing is a water sport where a person—or sometimes two people in tandem—rides a board on the forward face of a moving wave, typically heading toward shore. While most surfing waves are found on ocean coasts, they can also occur as standing waves in the open ocean, in lakes, in rivers as tidal bores, or in wave pools. Any form of wave-riding on a board counts as surfing, no matter the rider’s position. Ancient cultures, like the Moche in Peru, surfed on reed boats, and Pacific Islanders used boards such as alaia and paipo. Early surfers often rode on their belly or knees, but today the most common style is stand-up surfing, where the rider balances upright on a surfboard.
Body surfing—riding a wave using only the body, without a board—is widespread and considered by some to be the purest form. The closest board-based version is handboarding, which uses a small board with a strap for one hand. Body boarders, body surfers, and handboarders experience more drag in the water than stand-up surfers, which keeps them in a rougher, often whitewater-submerged part of the wave. In contrast, surfers using a hydrofoil face much less drag and can ride unbroken waves far from shore.
Stand-up surfing has three main subdivisions: stand-up paddling, longboarding, and shortboarding. These differ in board design and length, riding style, and the type of wave they are suited for. Tow-in surfing, mostly used for big waves, involves a motorized watercraft—like a personal watercraft—pulling the surfer into the wave to match its speed, which is often faster than a surfer can paddle. Related sports like paddle boarding and sea kayaking are self-propelled with hand paddles and don’t require waves, while kite surfing and windsurfing rely mainly on wind. All of these can still be used to ride waves. More recently, wakesurfing has emerged, where a person surfs on the wake of a V-drive boat. As of 2023, the largest wave ever surfed was a 26.2-meter (86-foot) ride by Sebastian Steudtner at Nazaré, Portugal, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
In the northern hemisphere’s winter, the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii’s third-largest island, is famous for world-class waves. Surfers from everywhere come to spots like Backdoor, Waimea Bay, and Pipeline. Other renowned surf locations include Teahupo’o off Tahiti; Mavericks in California, USA; Cloudbreak near Tavarua Island, Fiji; and the Superbank on the Gold Coast, Australia. In 2016, the International Olympic Committee added surfing as an Olympic sport, debuting at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan. The first gold medalists were Brazil’s Ítalo Ferreira in the men’s competition and Hawaii-born American Carissa Moore in the women’s.
Origins and history: In Peru, around three to five thousand years ago, cultures used reed kayak-like watercraft called mochica for fishing, which fishermen would surf back to shore. The Moche people later used the caballito de totora, with archaeological evidence dating to about 200 CE. Jesuit missionary José de Acosta described Inca surfing in Callao in his 1590 work *Historia natural y moral de las Indias*, noting how fishermen sat on small reed rafts, cutting through the rough sea like Tritons or Neptunes. In Polynesia, surfing was a key cultural activity, and modern surfing is believed to have originated in Hawaii. The practice dates to around 400 AD, when Polynesians traveled from Tahiti and the Marquesas to the Hawaiian Islands, bringing customs like riding paipo boards on their bellies. It was in Hawaii that standing upright on a board was invented. European explorers witnessed surfing in Polynesia; British explorers may have seen it in Tahiti in 1767 when Samuel Wallis and the crew of HMS Dolphin visited. Botanist Joseph Banks, part of James Cook’s first voyage, arrived in Tahiti in April 1769. Lieutenant James King was the first to write about Hawaiian surfing, finishing Cook’s journals after Cook’s death in 1779. In Herman Melville’s 1849 novel *Mardi*, based on his Polynesian experiences, he described a surfboard as about five feet long, the width of a man’s body, convex on both sides, polished, and rounded at the ends—highly valued and hung up after use. Mark Twain, visiting Hawaii in 1866, wrote of seeing large groups of natives of all ages and sexes enjoying surf-bathing. References to riding planks and single canoe hulls also exist from pre-contact times.
- field
- Water sport
- known_for
- Riding waves on a board
- earliest_evidence
- c. 200 CE (Moche culture, Peru)
Lore & Background
About three to five thousand years ago, cultures in ancient Peru fished in kayak-like watercraft made of reeds that the fishermen surfed back to shore. The Moche culture used the caballito de totora, with archaeological evidence showing its use around 200 CE. In Polynesian culture, surfing was an important activity. Modern surfing as we know it today is thought to have originated in Hawaii. The history of surfing dates to c. They brought many of their customs with them including playing in the surf on Paipo boards. It was in Hawaii that the art of standing and surfing upright on boards was invented. Various European explorers witnessed surfing in Polynesia.
Reader's Guide
Surfing has ancient roots across multiple cultures, including the Moche of Peru, Polynesians, West Africans, and western Central Africans, each independently developing wave-riding techniques. Surfing includes various forms such as body surfing, stand-up surfing, tow-in surfing, and derivative sports like kite surfing and windsurfing. The sport continues to evolve, with wakesurfing emerging recently and the largest wave ever surfed recognized at 26.2 m in Nazaré, Portugal.
Did You Know?
- The Moche of Peru surfed on reed craft around 200 CE.
- West Africans (e.g., Ghana, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal) independently developed surfing, with accounts from the 1640s CE.
The Long Bid for Olympic Recognition
For years, surfing's path to the Olympic program was blocked by two persistent concerns. First, the sport requires open water, which made it nearly impossible to stage when a landlocked nation hosted the Games. Second, the inherent danger of drowning in the ocean made the International Olympic Committee reluctant to assume the liability that could accompany a fatal incident. These obstacles kept the sport on the outside looking in for a long time. The breakthrough came in September 2015, when surfing landed on a shortlist alongside baseball, softball, karate, skateboarding, and sport climbing as candidates for the 2020 Summer Olympics. The following June, the IOC executive board signaled its backing for the entire shortlist, and on August 3, 2016, all five sports—counting baseball and softball as a single entry—received formal approval for the 2020 program. Surfing's inclusion marked the culmination of a long campaign to prove that an ocean-based, inherently variable sport could meet the standards of the world's premier multi-sport event.
One Board, One Event: The Olympic Format
Under the governance of the International Surfing Association, Olympic surfing is distilled into a single competitive discipline: shortboard surfing. There are no longboard heats, no bodyboard divisions, and no team events—just one format in which athletes ride shortboards and are judged on their performance. This streamlined approach means that every nation that sends a surfer to the Games fields competitors in the same narrow discipline, whether in the men's or women's shortboard category. The sport has appeared at two editions of the Summer Olympic Games so far, the 2020 and 2024 tournaments, in both cases as a discretionary addition rather than a permanent fixture of the program. The ISA oversees the competition structure, ensuring that the same rules and judging criteria apply regardless of which coastal venue hosts the event. By limiting the Olympic offering to one board type and one set of events, the organizing bodies have created a format that is logistically manageable even when the host city must arrange ocean access, while still giving surfers a clear, singular path to Olympic glory.
Medal Rivalries: The United States and Brazil
In the brief Olympic history of surfing, two nations have distinguished themselves at the top of the medal table. The United States claims the most gold medals, with two victories across the men's and women's shortboard events at the 2020 and 2024 Games. Brazil, meanwhile, has accumulated the highest total medal count, reaching three medals overall. This split—American dominance in the top spot versus Brazilian consistency across the podium—paints a picture of two surfing powerhouses approaching Olympic success from slightly different angles. The fact that both the men's and women's shortboard events are contested means each Games offers two gold-medal opportunities, making the competition for the top step intensely concentrated. With only two Olympic editions completed so far, the medal table remains compact, and the gap between the leading nations is measured in single digits. As the sport moves toward its mandatory 2028 appearance, both the United States and Brazil will be under pressure to defend their early Olympic legacies, while other participating nations look to close the gap in a discipline where a single wave can decide a career-defining moment.
From Discretionary to Mandatory: The 2028 Threshold
Surfing's Olympic status is in a state of transition. At both the 2020 and 2024 Summer Games, the sport appeared as a discretionary addition—selected by the host committee rather than being a permanent part of the Olympic program. This meant that surfing's presence was contingent on the host city's willingness and ability to stage ocean-based competition, a practical concern given the sport's dependence on coastal geography. That uncertainty is set to end. Surfing has been confirmed as one of the mandatory sports for the 2028 Summer Olympics, elevating it from an optional extra to a guaranteed fixture of the Games. This shift is significant: it removes the dependency on a particular host's discretion and signals that the International Olympic Committee now regards surfing as a core component of the Olympic sport portfolio. For athletes, the change means that the 2028 Games will carry the same structural certainty as established disciplines. For the International Surfing Association, it represents the final step in a journey that began with the 2015 shortlist and the 2016 approval, transforming surfing from a novelty inclusion into a permanent pillar of the Olympic movement.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Surfing?
Surfing is a surface water sport in which a rider uses a board to glide along the forward face of a moving wave, usually being carried toward shore. It covers every style of wave-riding on a board, regardless of whether the surfer is standing, crouching, or lying flat.
What is the earliest known evidence of Surfing?
Moche pottery from Peru, dating to roughly 200 CE, depicts people riding waves on reed craft, making it the oldest surviving visual record of the activity. Indigenous Pacific Islander communities had also been wave-riding well before European contact, so the sport's roots stretch back centuries in multiple regions.
Can you surf anywhere other than the ocean?
Yes—surfable waves also form as standing waves in open water, on large lakes, as tidal bores in rivers, and inside man-made wave pools. The essential requirement is simply a moving wave face and a board, so the water body is far more flexible than most people assume.
More in Sports And Games 1-24
Elsewhere in the Sports And Games universe
Spotted an error? Know more?
This is a living reference — every entry is fact-audited, and reader corrections feed straight into our audit queue. Suggest an edit · See this site's audit record