In confirming Raglan on the 2026 Championship Tour schedule, the World Surf League has taken a different direction in more ways than one.
For the first time, New Zealand will host both the men’s and women’s Championship Tours (CT), with May’s event at Raglan replacing South African break Jeffreys Bay on the schedule.
In doing so, the World Surf League (WSL) swaps a right-hand for a left-hand point break, offering a new look for tour surfers.
“It’s beautiful. We’ve been talking about it for a while now with WSL from a surfer’s perspective of wanting a few more lefts on the tour and the lefts that we have on the tour at the moment are mostly pretty much just barrel lefts,” CT athlete Connor O’Leary told the Herald.
“We’ve always thrown it out there, the idea of trying to get a performance left on the schedule ... it all worked out and here we are, we get to go left this year.”
The deal is a one-year agreement, however the WSL has spoken to the New Zealand Government about the interest in securing a longer-term deal, with the success of this year’s competition likely to play a role in the venue holding its spot on tour in future years.
There is likely to be plenty of interest from local fans, particularly after confirmation that Carissa Moore, Stephanie Gilmore and Gabriel Medina had accepted wildcards for the 2026 season. They have 16 world titles between the four of them.
Three-time world champion John John Florence had initially accepted a wildcard for the 2026 season as well, but has since decided to take another year off from competition to instead sail the globe with his family.
For goofy-footed surfers like O’Leary, who ride with their left foot at the back of their board, the move presented a rare chance to rip on the forehand, and cementing such a break on the tour long-term would likely be well-received among the athletes.
It was the fact that Raglan was a left-handed break which made it such an attractive location for the WSL.
While breaks like Saquarema, Brazil, and the Surf Abu Dhabi wave pool offer lefts and rights, Raglan will be the only outright left-hand performance wave on the schedule.
The desire for a quality left-hander on tour is not new. Speaking to the Herald in 2018 during her CT season, Kiwi goofy-footer Paige Hareb said the addition of such a break would not go amiss.
“The athletes have certainly shown a lot of interest in recent years to get more lefts on tour. So that was part of the factor and you know clearly Raglan’s an iconic, internationally-known, quality wave and it’s a left,” WSL Asia-Pacific president Andrew Stark told the Herald.
While the WSL had attempted to bring a Challenger Series event – one step down from the CT – to Auckland’s Piha Beach in 2020, which was ultimately cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Stark said they only had one wave in mind for this year’s opening on the main tour.
“With the Championship Tour event, once that came on the radar as something that was possible, Raglan was really the only location we were interested in because of its quality and left-hander and you know its iconic status.”
It was an event that came together relatively quickly.
Stark said the New Zealand Government expressed interest in securing an event late last year but, initially, there wasn’t an opportunity available.
However, the league decided a return to Jeffreys Bay was not financially viable in 2026 and a hole opened up in the schedule.
“We love J-Bay. It’s an amazing location, you know, been on tour for many years,” Stark said.
“Some things happened around that event where we were forced to remove it from the schedule, and that removal of the J-Bay event from this year’s schedule then presented an opportunity for New Zealand to secure that 12th position.
“So the CT essentially is replacing the J-Bay event for this year, albeit a different time of year. So the J-Bay event historically was in July and this event will be in May.”
Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.