The second public hearing conducted by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) was held online in November 2025, but the tension around the call felt anything but procedural. “I feel sick knowing that my daughter will probably have to go through this turmoil under such governance when she makes it to the Olympics,” said one of the attendees after the session concluded.

It has been over a year since the USOPC opened applications to recognise a National Governing Body (NGB) for surfing – an organisation tasked with overseeing the sport’s Olympic pathway. In early 2025, two candidates applied and were shortlisted for consideration through two public hearings. One was USA Surfing, the former NGB during surfing’s Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 and an organisation that has guided the sport’s pipeline for decades. The other was U.S. Ski & Snowboard (USSS), which argued that its track record of administering 10 winter sports made it well-suited to also oversee surfing, a summer Olympic discipline.

From the very first hearing in April, the global surfing community questioned how such a consideration could even be on the table. Beyond opinion, numerous letters, including some from Members of Congress, supporting USA Surfing were submitted to the USOPC, citing concerns that USSS was not only a poor choice but also ineligible under the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act. Passed in 1978, the Act was introduced when the U.S. Olympic Committee (then the USOC) lacked clear authority, and was designed to prevent exactly this kind of governance conflict: multiple organisations claiming control over the same sport, politically influenced selection processes, weak oversight, and inadequate athlete protections. Its purpose was to centralise authority while safeguarding athletes, not to prolong uncertainty.

For nearly a year – until USSS stepped back just before the second public hearing that was scheduled for November 2025 – the focus shifted from whether USSS should run the sport to whether USA Surfing could survive the process itself. While USSS’s suitability was debated, USA Surfing was repeatedly asked to justify its financial stability, raising questions about why the burden of proof fell so heavily on the organisation that had already guided the nation’s Olympic surfers. So former World Champion Ian ‘Kanga’ Cairns launched a petition to stop what he referred to as a ‘ski (hi)jack.’

When USSS withdrew, Cairns raised a deeper concern: Would USSS still retain influence behind the scenes, potentially through contractual involvement for the 2028 Summer Olympics? While a year was spent scrutinising USSS’s suitability as an NGB, far less attention has been paid to the accountability of the USOPC – the body that continues to hold the ultimate power. It decides who will run the sport and retains the option not to appoint an NGB at all, continuing to oversee it directly – as it did ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics – an arrangement that could leave the door open for USSS to remain involved by proxy.

USSS’s proposal at the first public hearing was largely straightforward, centred on the revenue it claimed it could bring to the sport, citing a ten-sport portfolio that generated $61 million in the previous financial year. Sophie Goldschmidt, CEO of USSS and former CEO of the World Surf League, spoke confidently about a focus on elite surfers while positioning USSS as a collaborator that would work alongside existing surfing organisations to support grassroots development.

Not everyone was convinced.

“We all know that development starts at a surf school and a surf shop across the world — that’s where kids first gain awareness of the sport and begin to imagine a future in it, including dreaming of one day being on the CT or even going to the Olympics. Breaking the chain of young surfers’ aspirations is an egregious violation of the pathway that resulted in gold medals for Carissa and Caroline,” Kanga said in a series of email exchanges, responding to Sophie’s collaborative claims and arguing that USSS’s model prioritised funding access and administrative efficiency over surfing’s long-term development.

The USOPC is responsible for distributing tens of millions of dollars annually to National Governing Bodies and athlete grants. According to its 2024 financial statements, $78.63 million was allocated specifically to NGB grants. These funds are often distributed based on performance metrics, including the number of medals each sport has historically produced. Surfing ranked among the bottom ten recipients, receiving just under $1 million. Meanwhile, U.S. Ski & Snowboard – a winter sports powerhouse – received nearly nine times that, with allocations reported to increase for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics – which officially began on 6 February and run through 22 February in northern Italy.

For a sport that has appeared in only two Olympic Games yet already produced two gold medals, the disparity highlights how surfing is still being evaluated as a new discipline, despite the fact that, as an action sport, it holds significant global influence and the capacity to return far more to the Olympic movement than it receives.

Couple of weeks back, USA Surfing announced a significant governance development: the appointment of Todd Kline as its first Surf Athlete Commissioner, a role created to ensure that athletes’ voices remain central as Olympic surfing heads toward a historic home-break moment at Lower Trestles for LA28. Backed publicly by 11x World Champion Kelly Slater, Kline – a former professional surfer and longtime World Surf League commentator – was tasked with acting as a direct liaison between surfers, competition platforms and USA Surfing leadership, ensuring athlete priorities guide the sport’s future.

Certification for surfing NGB is now expected after the Winter Games, likely pushed to April 2026, complicating entry into the sponsorship cycle – a problem that, ironically, USOPC had originally suggested USA Surfing might be unable to manage.

A year of indecision has meant missed training cycles, uncertain funding for athletes and a stalled Olympic pipeline for one of the world’s most influential surf nations. Yet the appointment of Todd Kline suggests USA Surfing is attempting to rebuild trust from within, placing athlete representation at the centre of its Olympic strategy. Whether this momentum is supported, or undermined, by the USOPC’s final decision will shape not only America’s medal prospects but also the credibility of surfing’s governance in the Olympic era. As LA28 approaches on home waters, the question is no longer simply who controls the system, but whether that system is finally prepared to serve the athletes it claims to represent.