This article ran in the February 1997 issue of Australia's Surfing Life.

"The door is not closed," International Olympic Committee chairman Juan Antonio Samaranch told his International Surfing Association counterpart Fernando Aguerre when they met in Lausanne last June to discuss surfing's inclusion in the Olympics, possibly as soon as Sydney in 2000.

And so began an agonizing five months while eager surfing administrators, deluded by the glittering prize of inclusion in the Olympics, pondered Samaranch's true meaning, apparent enthusiasm for surfing, and power to swing the committee that decides the Olympic program in their favour.

What they didn't ponder was Samaranch's legendary diplomacy, his ability to make the representatives of any federation feel as if their sport was a shining example of the Olympic ideal, and worthy of immediate, special attention.

If they had, they might have realised earlier that, in fact, the "door" was always closed. Surfing never, not even for a second, stood a chance of being included in the Sydney Games. This was confirmed at an IOC meeting in Mexico in November when the official Olympic program was released.

There are two reasons for this: the ISA, surfing's representative to the IOC, is still serving its two-year provisional membership of the Olympic organization, which makes it ineligible for inclusion; and even if it were eligible, there is such a bunfight over the restricted number of athletes for the Games that an existing sport would have to be dropped to make way for surfing.

The two new sports for the Sydney program—taekwondo and triathlon—have been sniffing around and sucking up to IOC delegates since 1976 and 1980 respectively. Surfers must be prepared for a much longer haul than they have endured already.

All of which begs the question: why bother? Surfing already has its pinnacle—the WCT World Title—which is decided over a swag of events in a variety of good quality waves from all over the planet. Compared to this, a gold medal decided over two weeks in what would probably be shit surf may as well come tumbling out of your Corn Flakes box.

Not only that, the aura of the Olympics is a thin facade. Sure, there are some people whose dreams come true at the Olympics, and good on them, but they are just fodder for Olympics' true masters: the global television networks and their advertisers, the sports clothing conglomerates that pay millions in sponsorships but pittance to their Asian child labourers. Call me an idealist, but I reckon surfing is better than this. Inclusion in the Olympics would be nothing but a huge step backwards.

"SURFING'S OLYMPIC DREAM SHATTERED," BY FRED PAWLE (1997)

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