By Erika Scafuro

This is it. 2023 WSL Championship Tour competitors have been confirmed and on 29 January the WSL Championship starts again with the first stop, the Billabong Pro Pipeline. We are excited to once again watch the world’s best surfers compete on the world’s best waves.
The list of competitors for the 2023 Championship Tour season was determined by the top finishers of the 2022 CT and the 2022 Challenger Series, plus the seasonal wildcards and events selected by the WSL Tours and Competition team.
 
World-class athletes include more and more a new generation of surfers who have dedicated their youth to achieving a dream, who have made sacrifices and worked hard so that they could compete among the best surfers in the world. Let’s see some highlights.
For the 2023 season, representing new countries on the Championship Tour, we find Ramzi Boukhiam, representing Morocco, and Rio Waida representing Indonesia. Ramzi Boukhiam will be Morocco’s first-ever CT competitor in 2023.
Born in Morocco, Ramzi Boukhiam started surfing on the beaches north of the capital Agadir. After the loss of his father, his move to France, south of Biarritz, enabled him, despite a difficult period, to make his mark in European surfing. He did big performances throughout the 2022 Challenger Series season and finally he made his dream. We can therefore only imagine Ramzi’s great satisfaction at representing his country at the WSL Championships.
The young Rio Waida, born in 2000 to an Indonesian father and a Japanese mother, both surfers, has been surfing since childhood when his parents decided to move from Japan to Bali. His talent was recognised early on, Waida is gifted with a technique that allows him to be fast, not surprisingly he grew up surfing the best waves in the world.

@ Photo by Francesco Canu

We are happy, and as Italians very proud, to celebrate Leonardo Fioravanti’s return to the CT. Last 9 October, the Roman surfer took the victory at the EDP Vissla Pro Ericeira placing first in the 2022 Challenger Series ranking and officially obtaining the qualification for the 2023 Championship Tour.
The 2023 CT season will start with 36 men and 18 women. Then, with the mid-season cut, the number will be reduced to 24 men and 12 women. The top-ranked surfers will go on with the Championship Tour – where they will be joined by one season-long wildcard and one event wildcard – plus they will be automatically reconfirmed for the 2024 season.
In addition to the 2023 WSL wildcards, the WSL Tours and Competition team also assigned one WSL Replacement – who will surf amongst the world’s best when a CT surfer withdraws from the competition – both for men’s and women’s competitions.