As the days wore on, PASA decided they couldn’t wait any longer and gave Muñoz and Correa a hard return date. If the pair didn’t make it to Peru by December 7th, they would be officially disqualified from the PASA Games. Worse still, there was no flight path from Honolulu to Lima on the night of the 6th (the final day of the Sunset event), making it impossible for Correa and Muñoz to surf in both competitions.

A decision had to be made: stay in Hawaii to surf in the World Cup, pursuing the off-chance that they might place highly enough to qualify for the 2019 Championship Tour, or abandon the position they’d worked their entire lives to achieve, instead flying to Peru to compete in a regional surfing event that offered limited exposure and no prize money.

For a professional surfer in the prime of their career, the decision seems obvious. Opportunities for CT qualification don’t come along every day. Of course, they would stay in Hawaii.

If it weren't for one important detail...

There are three channels through which a Pan-American surfer can qualify for the Olympics. These channels have a system of hierarchy, Channel one being the highest.

It’s also worth noting that only two surfers per gender/per country will be eligible to surf in the Olympics. So, if two male surfers from Brazil qualify through Channel one, no other male Brazilian surfers can earn a spot in the Games through any of the other channels. Capiche?

Channel one: There will be ten male and eight female Olympic qualifiers from the 2019 Championship Tour. Essentially, it’s the ten highest-ranked men and eight highest-ranked women, so long as there are no more than two surfers per gender/per nation in those groups.

So, if USA and Brazil both have three surfers in the men’s top-10, the first two will earn an Olympic slot while the third (from each nation) will be deemed ineligible, giving the surfers ranked 11 and 12 on the CT the opportunity to seize those spots, assuming there are not two or more surfers from their home nation already ahead of them. In the case that there are two or more surfers from their home nation ahead of them, the Olympic slots will then become available to surfers ranked 13 and 14, and so on.

It was unlikely that Correa or Muñoz would qualify through this channel, because they weren’t yet on the CT, and even if they did qualify for the CT via the World Cup, they’d still need to have a successful rookie season to make use of this option.

Channel two: Another Olympic slot is available for surfers who finish in the top four (male) or six (female) of the 2020 ISA World Games, so long as no two CT surfers of their same nation/gender already hold Olympic spots. This is another low-percentage option, due to the breadth and depth of talent that will inhabit that event.

Channel three: In the 2019 Pan-Am Games, the top-rated male and female will earn a tentative** spot into Tokyo 2020. This is the easiest of the three options, because it entails beating just 15 other non-CT surfers.

Oh, and it's worth mentioning that the only way to qualify for the Pan-Am Games is by competing in the PASA Games.