WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAVE

Courtney Conlogue is rock-climbing the door and window frames of her quarantine hotel room in Sydney. Elsewhere in the building, Italo Ferreira films a bodyweight workout for his Instagram page, featuring explosive push-ups, backflips, and those trademark washboard abs. Jack Robinson shaves his head and Griffin Colapinto spruiks Vegemite in a wacky Californian drawl.

Welcome to the World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour in 2021. Or, as Head of Competition and Senior Vice President of Tours Jessi Miley-Dyer more accurately describes it, ‘the travelling circus’. “Everyone calls it the travelling circus,” she laughs. “It’s a bit like being on summer camp or something.”

First, she convinced the steely Australian Government to prise open its borders for 54 international surfers, plus at least the same number of administration staff and