The first time Kanoa Igarashi did a backflip on a surfboard was an eye-opening experience.
Igarashi had been in the ocean earlier that day, about a month ago, but the session did not go well, and the cold weather in Portugal, where he lives, only amplified his feeling of discontent. On an impulse, he decided to try and salvage the day with a trip to a wave pool, a facility that generates artificial waves and allows surfers to ride when landlocked or when Mother Nature is not cooperating.
He found a flight to Spain and headed to Wavegarden Lab, in Basque Country. During his session there, Igarashi guided his board up a big wave and launched into the air. He grabbed the board as his body flipped around, letting go at the right time, landing and riding away cleanly. Igarashi, who had never even done a backflip on dry land, managed one in the water on his fourth attempt.
He was excited — stoked, if you will, in surfing parlance. It was not only the trick that got his blood pumping. It was the endless possibilities that were appearing in front of him. He thought a backflip was beyond his capabilities — until he did one. If he could do that, he thought, maybe anything was possible.
Even winning the title on the World Surf League Championship Tour (CT).
The CT kicked off Monday with the Lexus Pipe Pro at Pipeline in Oahu, Hawaii. Day 1 of the season-opening event, however, was delayed until at least Wednesday due to poor conditions. The event is scheduled to run until Feb. 8.
Igarashi, who has been on the main tour since 2016, is starting this season with big dreams.
“I’m really excited for the season to start,” Igarashi told The Japan Times from Hawaii. “This is my ninth year on tour, so I’ve gone through so many stages in my career so far, being a junior, being a rookie, trying to find my feet to getting my first taste of victory. Now it’s like, ‘let’s win a world title.’
“That’s a big jump, from settling in to trying to win a world title. There are a lot of risks you have to take and strategies and things like that. So I’ve been trying to master that the last few years, trying to find what works for me and what is going to help me take myself to the next level to be in the shot for a title.”
Igarashi was No. 17 in the rankings on the CT in 2024. He won eight heats and had his best finish of the season at the Hurley Pro Sunset Beach, where he was the runner-up.
He starts this year at No. 18.
Igarashi was the Olympic silver medalist at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and made the WSL Final 5 in 2022. He also competed for Japan at the Paris Olympics last year. Igarashi reached the round of 16 at the Paris Games (the surfing event was held in Tahiti) before losing to top seed Gabriel Medina in a heat that produced the viral photo of his Brazilian opponent seemingly floating above the waves.
The 27-year-old said this is the first season in which he feels like a finished product, which gives him more confidence. The elusive backflip he landed also helps in that area.
“Actually landing that backflip was so much more than just landing a backflip to me,” Igarashi said. “We’re constantly, as humans, putting a cap on ourselves and limiting ourselves. In my 20 years of surfing, I had never even thought about trying a backflip, because I’ve never done a backflip on a trampoline, or off anything. So it was never even in my head, the mechanics of doing a backflip.
“So it was a really cool accomplishment for me, like, ‘Hey, why am I limiting myself?’ The sky's the limit. Let's push myself to the max.”
Igarashi prepared for the 2025 CT by breaking up his offseason — about four months — into blocks. He spent a month without doing any high-performance surfing, only venturing out for fun, and spent time with his friends and family. Then came a block focused on mental and physical preparation, and then a block to focus on his equipment.
He has grown as a surfer through the years. He figures he has put on about 30 pounds of muscle since the beginning of his career, and his technique and equipment have also evolved. Becoming stronger mentally and physically has allowed Igarashi to tap into his inner strength and be less reliant on outside forces.
“When I was on my first year on tour, I was hoping for certain conditions, and I felt like some conditions had to go my way for me to do my best surfing on that day,” he said. “Where now, I feel like I’ve been able to work on my weaknesses to where I don’t have to worry about what conditions come up on that day. I know I’ll be ready physically. That’s a big difference. That gives me confidence.”
That inner focus has also brought a clarity he did not have early in his career.
“I was really excited,” he said, recalling his first year on the CT. “Every event was really exciting. But then it was kind of like, I never really had an end goal. I was just happy and excited to be there. My second year, at the start of the year, it was kind of confusing. I was like, ‘the excitement is kind of wearing off. It’s really good to be here, but why am I here?’
“From that to where I am now, I’m three days from the start of the season, to go ‘yeah, I’m aiming for a world title this year,’ it’s a lot more exciting. It brings another type of joy and excitement waking up every day toward that goal. That’s the main difference.”
Igarashi is the face of Japanese surfing, and one of his dreams is to become the first Japanese world champion.
“I feel like a lot of weight on my shoulders,” he said. “Sometimes it weighs me down, but sometimes it's really exciting for me. So in saying that, I just think it'd be such a positive thing for the country.”
He was recently in Japan for an advance screening of “Red Bull Surfing ‘No Contest Tokyo’” a documentary film he is featured in centered around Japanese surfing culture. He held a special prerelease screening in Tokyo as a way to connect with his Japanese fans. He attended the early screening last week before heading back to Hawaii.
“I know a lot of these people, they support me all year,” he said. “They wake up in the middle of the night, they take days off work, all that kind of stuff to watch me compete. So for me, doing these activities is a way for me to connect with them, and just for them to know that, ‘Hey, I'm here with you guys. It's a team effort. We're going for this world title together.’”
Igarashi says Japan has a unique surfing culture that is unlike that of most places in the world and that the best way to understand it is to experience it.
“I would say most surfers in Japan live in Tokyo,” he said. Normally, anywhere around the world, it's people who live near the beach. Those are the surfers. But in Japan, it's kind of the opposite. You have surf shops in the middle of the city. It's a really booming surf culture that people don't realize.
“The people just love it. It's a part of the way they grew up, the routine. Like the weekends are for surfing. During the week they work, and the weekends are for surfing. So it's just a really cool environment, and I just want people to realize from the outside how passionate people are for surfing in Japan, in Tokyo.”
Igarashi is confident as he heads into the CT this year. He is prepared for the grind, physically and mentally, and has a wealth of experience to lean on as he chases his first world title with a legion of Japanese support behind him.
Now that he has gotten his first backflip out of the way, he might even have a new trick up his wetsuit sleeve.
“I think it could come in handy in a few locations on tour,” he said. “I'm really excited to kind of have the opportunity to maybe do a maneuver like that in competition.”
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