Sanoa Dempfle-Olin has become the first ever surfing athlete named to the Canadian Olympic Team, CSA Surf Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee announced in a press release Monday.
The Tofino, B.C., native will compete in women’s shortboard for Team Canada at the Paris 2024 Olympics in Teahupo’o, Tahiti. She will be coached by Shannon Brown — also from Tofino.
“I feel so proud to be the first Canadian to qualify for surfing in the Olympics,” Dempfle-Olin said.
The 18-year-old provisionally qualified for the Paris 2024 Games in October after she advanced to the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games women’s shortboard final, winning silver. She officially earned a berth to the Olympics when she competed at the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games, placing 13th in March.
WATCH | Dempfle-Olin, 11 other Canadians qualify for Paris at 2023 Pan Am Games:
12 Canadian athletes and teams earned berths to next summer’s Olympics at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.
Dempfle-Olin made history in 2017 when she became the youngest woman to win the Tofino Rip Curl Pro event at 11 years old.
Bruny Surin, Team Canada’s Paris 2024 chef de mission, said he is “so delighted” Dempfle-Olin is making history for Canada.
Tokyo 2020 was the first Games to include surfing, however, Canada did not have any qualifying athletes in the sport. Surfing made its Pan American Games debut in Lima in 2019 when Dempfle-Olin’s older sister, Mathea, won Canada’s first-ever Pan Am surfing medal, earning the bronze in women’s longboard.
Surfing at Paris 2024 is scheduled for July 27 to July 30 in Teahupo’o — contingency days are set for July 31 to Aug. 4.