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It’s been several weeks since San Clemente beat out Huntington Beach as the host city for the 2028 Olympic Games surfing event. And the question remains: Why Trestles Beach over Surf City?
Local surfing legend Pete Townend, who was inducted into the Huntington Beach Surfing Walk of Fame in 1998, told the Business Journal he was hoping for a Surf City win.
But, ultimately, San Clemente’s superior waves trumped Huntington Beach’s finely tuned infrastructure.
“Of course we’re disappointed,” he said in a May 28 email. “We got beat out by a better wave. On the bright side, Olympic surfing is still in Orange County, and we’re still ‘Surf City’ home of all elements of surf culture, the US Open of Surfing, the International Surfing Museum, the Surfing Walk of Fame and the retail ‘Times Square of Surfing’ at PCH and Main.”
Trestles Beach hosting surfing is bound to be an economic windfall for San Clemente. What that windfall looks like has yet to be determined.
After Trestles won the competition, the San Clemente City Council in late May created committees to figure out how to host Olympic surfing and what benefits South Orange County could take advantage of during the next three years.
Mayor Steve Knoblock limited his commentary on the big win to a State of the City address on May 2.
“The Olympics creates a lot of opportunities and a lot of challenges, for public safety, transportation, housing and other logistics,” the Mayor said during his speech.
Details to Come
Greg Cruse, a San Clemente resident who once served as the CEO of USA Surfing, told the Business Journal that the city is still figuring out the specific details of how it would host the Olympic event.
The city doesn’t have the infrastructure that Huntington Beach has, in terms of hotel space, traffic management and event hosting, especially when it comes to hosting a surfing tournament.
Cruse, who played an active role in bringing Olympic surfing to Trestles Beach, said San Clemente doesn’t plan to steal all the economic thunder. Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano and Oceanside are chipping in to share with hosting responsibilities.
Cruse said San Clemente and the city’s neighbors are also looking into how the Olympics could benefit South County after the athletes and spectators leave.
The international surfing competition at Trestles will feature 48 surfers—24 men and 24 women. Those athletes will need places to train—and to stay.
Lots of Work to Come
Knoblock, during the San Clemente City Council meeting on May 6, said a lot of work needs to be done ahead of the 2028 Games, such as addressing housing, security and transportation.
Area hotels include Holiday Inn Express San Clemente, Surfbreak Hotel, The Volare, Hilton Garden Inn, Best Western Capistrano Inn and Springhill Suites Oceanside Beach, to name a few.
Local schools and parks could also be made available for training. Whether those facilities would require upgrades before the arrival of the Olympics has not yet been determined.
The city, in the meantime, will spend the next few months studying how it would coordinate logistics and planning for the surfing competition.
San Juan Capistrano is also in the middle of a building boom, including plans to build a hotel (see story page 1).