By Philip O’Connor
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A year on from the pressure-cooker atmosphere of surfing’s Olympic debut in Tokyo, Kanoa Igarashi goes into Thursday’s World Surf League finals in a much more relaxed state as he hopes to go one better than last year’s silver medal.
The 24-year-old, whose Japanese parents emigrated to Huntington Beach in California when they found out his mother was pregnant with him, told Reuters that it was only after the Olympics that he realised how much pressure he had been under.
“It took a good minute to really kind of digest everything about the Olympics — lot of people don’t realise that it wasn’t what happened on that day … but the people around me, from our perspective, it was like a full year-long event,” he said in an interview from his home in California.
Affable, well-spoken and with an emotional connection to the Olympic venue through his father Tsutomu, who taught him to surf there during summer vacations, Igarashi competed for Japan and quickly became swept up in the Games, doing countless media appearances and interviews.
“I’m gonna be completely honest, I went numb to the idea of pressure — It was something that I really realised maybe after a year, that I was so drowned, like I was drowning in pressure, for not just that day, but for so long,” Igarashi explained.
With the hopes of the host nation and the eyes of the surfing world upon him, it was no surprise that he came up short in the final as Italo Ferreira took the Olympic gold for Brazil.
There was no shame in defeat for Igarashi, who says that instead it felt like the whole of Japan had won that silver medal with him.
However, it did prove hard to move on from that momentous occasion.
FINDING MOTIVATION
“The rest of my year after the Olympics, it was really weird. It was this kind of release, everything felt like a really slow pace. And it was really hard to find motivation to do things,” he said.
With the Olympic experience now behind him, the young surfer is focusing on winning the WSL world title, which has always been his childhood dream.
“At the start of the year, my goal was top five, give myself a chance of fighting for a world title. I live 45 minutes away from the venue, and it’s a huge honour and opportunity to be able to fight for a world title, to be the best in the sport,” he says.
Igarashi finished the season in fifth spot in the rankings, grabbing one of the five berths for the final, which takes place at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, California, a renowned cobblestone point that is widely considered one of the best waves in the world.
After a brilliant season so far, Brazil’s Filipe Toledo will be the man to beat in the finals, and Igarashi feels well-prepared for the challenge.
“I haven’t been getting ready for this for the last couple weeks – this is something I’ve been getting ready for my whole life, which makes it a lot easier for me. That’s why I’m a lot more relaxed,” he says.
“As soon as the Olympics was over for me, my mentality shifted over to becoming world champion, winning a world title. This is like a 10-year-old me’s dream, you know?” Igarashi says.
“The Olympics is more of like a way to honour my family, it was different, it had a different part of my heart. Whereas this is the world title.”
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor; Editing by Toby Davis)
