Kanoa Igarashi

Kanoa's father Tsutomu was a surfer in Japan and an avid fan of the sport himself. When his wife Misa found out she was pregnant, the couple quit their jobs in Tokyo and moved to Huntington Beach, California, aka Surf City, with the goal of raising their child to be a competitive surfer.[3] Tsutomu took his son Kanoa surfing as young as age 3, and would routinely wake Kanoa up to go surfing by 5:45AM so he could still make it to school on time.[4] Kanoa won his first surfing trophy by age 7.[4]

In 2016 he entered as the youngest rookie to the WSL CT and the first representative surfer for Japan in the WSL.[1] He won the Vans U.S. Open WSL event in his hometown of Huntington Beach two years in a row in 2017 and 2018, but was eliminated early the following year.[5] Kanoa's first 1st-place finish at a WSL CT event was at the Corona Bali Protected event in Indonesia in 2019; he placed 6th overall that year.[2]

As a top ranked finisher of the 2019 WSL CT, Kanoa has qualified to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo as a representative of Japan. The games have been postponed to July 23, 2021 due to the 2019 Coronavirus outbreak.[6] The selected beach break for the competition is at Tsurigasaki beach in the town of Ichinomiya, Chiba prefecture.[7] The chosen beach break has special meaning to Kanoa as it is the same beach break that Kanoa's father Tsutomu not only surfed at, but also reportedly discovered with his friends and called "the Dojo".[8]