The announcement last year that surfing would be added to the 2020 Olympics sent, ahem, waves across the industry as professionals and amateurs alike argued over the decision.

The attempt to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles in 2024 has kept the discussion going. On Tuesday, 511 surfers joined together in Huntington Beach, California to set a Guinness World Record for the world’s largest paddle out to show support for the addition of surfing to the Olympic Games.

https://twitter.com/SurfCityFamily/status/877287376694857729

The idea, which came from Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum Executive Director Diana Dehm, according to The Orange County Register, was to show that the city wants to host the surfing competition that could come with the 2024 Olympic Games. The newspaper also reports that Dehm and the city’s mayor have reached out to Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti about it.

Olympic surfing in SoCal? Could be.

The campaign to bring the Games here is well underway and the finalists are believed to be Paris and Los Angeles. So more than 500 surfers showed up to show support this week in Huntington Beach, even as the debate over what the Olympics might mean for the sport continues.

Take British (yeah, you read that right) surfers Hannah Bristow and Emily Currie for example. Bristow, who has a YouTube channel about her surfing adventures, and Currie, a professional surfer in Great Britian disagree. BBC hosted a casual debate on the topic between them.

https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/877153412923707393

“Surfing in the Olympics will make it such a clean cut ‘athlete’ sport and the reason I got into surfing was because it was non-judgmental,” Bristow said. “You can be an outcast and it’s fine.”

Currie likes the idea of Olympic surfing because it will “allow everyone to be on the exact same level” and “it will be about talent.”

“It’s just a different sport,” Currie said. “Surfing is a lifestyle to so many more people than it is a sport, so I do understand that the Olympics will change it. But I think it will just stay changed in the surfing sport of it.”

We asked our readers what they thought in a casual Twitter poll. We found no clear consensus. (Vote to see the results.)

https://twitter.com/sdutIdeas/status/878005208281890816

San Diego, home to proud, passionate surfers — and other citizens who watch them enviously from the beach or are just used to seeing them in the background — should have a thing or two to say about this.

Would you like to see Olympic surfing come to the beaches of Southern California in 2024? Send us at tweet to @sdutideas or comment below.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin