This Saturday, the U.S. Open of Surfing will launch its nine-day festivities in Huntington Beach. It’s been one of the largest annual surf competitions in the world since 1959. The U.S. Open is the fourth stop in the World Surf League’s Challenger Series.
The nine-day event will feature four main surfing competitions: men’s and women’s shortboarding, and men’s and women’s longboarding. Will Sileo, an editor at outdoor publication The Inertia, explains that the World Surf League judges will critique a surfer’s speed, power, flow, the waves they catch, and their innovation as a surfer.
“That perfect 10 … is with tricks that are pushing the envelope, that sort of oh-my-god moment where you can't believe they made it out of that barrel, or you can't get that air.”
Laylan Connelly, a beach reporter at the Orange County Register, says many competitors at the Open are hoping to enter the pro levels.
“That's what makes this event so exciting is you have these really hungry [surfers], a lot of them younger, a lot of them from other countries, these athletes who come in and really want to make their mark. But then they have to go up against people who are on the World Tour,” she says.
Which surfers should you watch out for this year? Connelly points to Kanoa Igarashi, Sawyer Lindblad, Bella Kenworthy, and Filipe Toledo, the current world champion.
Visitors to the Open can also check out family-friendly activities, music concerts, and sponsored vendors who are selling and giving away merchandise.
This year, the U.S. Open is partnering with Nitro Circus for the first time with a new sports exhibition: freestyle motocross.
Back when Vans sponsored the U.S. Open, there were sports exhibitions for skateboarding and BMX. But the company recently pulled out as the main sponsor, and was replaced by the digital asset service provider Wallex.
Since the Open’s first iteration in 1959, it’s changed sponsors and even its name several times. In the 1980s, Connelly says the Open was known as the “OP Pro” and had “this wild MTV vibe where there was … this massive riot on the sand.”
She adds, “It's gone through a number of changes, but it's always historically been just this gathering place where people could come enjoy … the outdoors for free. It's a free event. And depending on what sponsor has control of it, or is organizing, it … has a different feel and flavor.”