France overtook Australia in the overall team rankings on the penultimate day of competition and maintained their grip on the lead on final day.
Australia finished with the silver medal, Hawaii with the bronze and Japan took their first ever team medal with the copper in a promising preview of their drive to develop the sport on the road to Olympic Surfing in Tokyo 2020.
USA’s Caroline Marks (Girls U16), France’s Thomas Debierre (Boys U16), Hawaii’s Brisa Hennessy (Girls U18) and Brazil’s Weslley Dantas (Boys U18) were crowned the individual gold medallists and became the first individual World Junior Champions in the era of Olympic Surfing.
“Congratulations to France and the individual winners,” said ISA President Fernando Aguerre at the closing ceremony. “These surfers will forever be the very first ISA Junior Gold Medallists in the Olympic Surfing era.
As all the other ISA competitors, they surfed in true Olympic spirit and showed amazing team camaraderie as they competed for the honour of representing their countries.”
