Though it takes place far from Paris, the Olympic surfing is proving a hit as it makes its sophomore appearance as part of the 2024 Summer Olympics. The preliminary surfing rounds have begun and only a few days remain.
US: Peacock | NBC
UK: iPlayer | BBC (free with license fee) | Discovery Plus
AU: Stan Sports | 9Now (free)
Watch abroad with a VPN
That's because while these are the Paris Olympics, surfing actually takes place in Tahiti, where the surf will make for an excellent competition. There will be both a Men's Shortboard event and Women's Shortboard, so two sets of medals are up for grabs.
Sports fans in Australia or the UK will be able to watch the Olympic surfing trials for free on 9Now or iPlayer, which is certainly a real treat. But never fear if you're away from home during the tournament, because you can watch the Olympic games from anywhere with a VPN.
Olympic surfing was first held in 2020, where it caused lots of confusion for regular watchers with the rules, but this time around we've had four extra years to get our head around the scoring.
Over three rounds, competitors will be graded on their surfing: their tricks, speed, power and flow between tricks will all be scored, with the best scores kept. Afterwards the best-performing athletes will compete in Quarter-, Semi- and then full finals towards the end.
If you're excited to catch the 2024 Olympic surfing events, or want to know more before you make a decision, this guide will help you understand the watery sport.
How to watch the Olympic surfing in the US
If you live in the US, you can use NBC's channels to catch some Olympic coverage, but the broadcaster's main effort for showing the games is using its streaming service Peacock.
Peacock is expected to host live streams of every single Olympic event, so you can use it to watch all the surfing. It also has a range of features intended to improve your Olympic watching experience, including the ability to stream four different sports at once.
Peacock costs $5.99 for its basic, ad-enabled tier and $11.99 for its ad-free one, and you can sign up below.
How to watch the Olympic surfing in the UK
In the UK, it'll be the BBC that's broadcasting Olympic coverage across all of the sports, with one stream on TV and another online. There won't be one easy way to see surfing, and you'll just have to hope that the Beeb's coverage includes surfing.
On TV, live coverage of Olympic sports will vary between BBC One and BBC Two, jumping between various sports at opportune moments.
Online, iPlayer will host an Olympics Extra live stream which will show other sports, and it'll also be swapping between various sports at different times. iPlayer lets you stream the BBC's channels live so this online option will let you see quite a bit of sports at once.
If you pay your license fee, then both of these options are free.
Thankfully, there is another option that'll let you see the sports. Discovery Plus is set to show a lot more of the Olympic games, and while it usually costs £6.99 per month for its Standard plan, a temporary deal lets you sign up for £3.99 monthly until the end of the year.
How to watch the Olympic surfing in Australia
In Australia, the rights for broadcasting the 2024 Olympic games, including the surfing, fall to the Nine Network.
The Nine TV channel will show some Olympic coverage, but if you want to make sure you don't miss a second of surfing action, you'll want to turn to 9Now.
This online streaming service is expected to show live streams of every Olympic sport including, of course, surfing.
Best of all, it's free to tune in to 9Now if you're in Australia.
How to watch the Olympic surfing everywhere else
If you're going to be away from your normal TV setup but still want to watch the Olympic surfing, you might run into some problems. Thankfully, you can solve this exact issue with a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
A VPN lets you change your IP address to that of the area of what you want to watch, meaning you can tune in to your favorite sporting event, show or other content even if you're not there. Our favorite is NordVPN, which is the No. 1-rated VPN in the world right now according to our sister site, TechRadar.
How to use a VPN to watch any stream
- Download the app at NordVPN
- Choose the location of the streaming service you want to watch (UK, US, etc)
- Navigate to the streaming service and start watching!
Olympic surfing schedule
Here's the schedule for the Olympic surfing:
Saturday, July 27
- Men's Round 1
- Women's Round 1
Sunday, July 28
- Men's Round 2
- Women's Round 2
Monday, July 29
- Men's Round 3
- Women's Round 3
Tuesday, July 30
- Men's Quarterfinals
- Women's Quarterfinals
- Men's Semifinals
Wednesday, July 31
- Women's Semifinals
- Men's Bronze Medal Match
- Women's Bronze Medal Match
- Men's Gold Medal Match
- Women's Gold Medal Match
All you need to know about the Olympic surfing
When does the Olympic surfing begin?
The Olympic surfing competition begins on Saturday, July 27, which is the day after the opening ceremony. It'll run for five days until Wednesday, July 31.
Which teams are playing in the Olympic surfing?
There will be 21 countries with surfers at the Olympic surfing competition, with a grand count of 48 participants in total.
The countries are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, France, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, South Africa, Spain and the United States.
Each gender's competition will have 24 surfers, though some countries are only competing for one event or the other.
Where does the Olympic surfing tournament take place?
The 2024 Olympic surfing event is taking the action far, far from Paris, which hosts most of the rest of the events, however it is still in French territory.
That's because it's hosted in Tahiti, at the coastal village of Teahuo'o. This is a popular surfing destination, and a new judging tower was added to the beach for the competition.
Teahuo'o also sets a new record as the furthest competition venue from a host city in Olympic history.
How to watch other Olympic sports
If you want specific information on other Olympic sports, here are guides we have to the other activities which will be shown as part of the Paris Olympic games:
