JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Despite being a three-time world champion in her sport, Liv Stone realized earlier this year that she may never get a chance to compete at the Olympic level.
The 21-year old para-surfer was one of many in the sport's international community who was distressed to find out that despite years of advocacy, para-surfing— a form of surfing that allows people with physical disabilities to ride waves on a board or wave ski— wouldn't be included in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“When I heard it didn't get in, I was shocked," said Stone. “Not just for my career, but for all the other athletes as well.”
With para-surfing not being selected for the Los Angeles Games, Stone and other members of the para-surfing and surfing communities are strengthening their advocacy for the sport to be included in future Paralympics, offering creative solutions to help keep their Paralympic surfing dreams afloat.
The push for para-surfing to be included in the Paralympics has been a priority for over half a decade, said Stone.
“We pushed for over five years to get into the Paris Olympics,” said Stone. “Then Paris came and we're weren't there ... I realized we need to keep pushing.”
Advocates quickly turned their efforts to the 2028 Los Angeles Games, feeling that the sport met many of the criteria needed to be considered, including a certain number of countries and International Paralympic Committee regions, a classification system based on impairments and approximate gender parity for certain divisions, said five-time para-surfing world champion Victoria Feige, who is 38.
But then came the announcement: para-surfing would be passed over the for Los Angeles Paralympics, with para-climbing being included instead.
“LA28’s assessment of Para Climbing and Para Surfing was informed by the global and domestic popularity, the universality at major international events as well as the cost and complexity of both sports within the LA28 venue master plan context,” a Los Angeles Olympics spokesperson wrote in an email to The Associated Press.
"In finalizing our proposal LA28 needed to strike a balance between its commitment to growing the Paralympic Movement and our commitment to manage the size of the Games and our financial responsibility towards the City of Los Angeles.”
Feige said that she was disappointment when she heard the announcement, but with a fresh sense of determination to get parasurfing included in the Games — be it at the Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032 Olympics, she said. “Cost is a real factor. We recognize that,” Feige said. “But I’ve really been trying to think of how can we showcase our value in terms of corporate sponsorship, how can we showcase our value in terms of viewership, and how can we, as athletes, showcase our sport in a way that would justify a higher cost."
Feige said she and others began brainstorming solutions that could help lower costs or ease logistical difficulties, including the idea that a wave pool could be used to address water safety and infrastructure concerns, or corporate sponsorships or crowd-funding could be utilized to address the higher costs.
The ideas and advocacy garnered attention, and in June an online petition asking for para-surfing to be included in the Los Angeles Games began, getting over 19,000 signatures.
The push to get para-surfing into the Paralympics also has the backing of the International Surfing Association, the world governing authority for surfing that is recognized by the International Olympic Committee, which has advocated for para-surfing to be included in the Games and hosted the ISA World Para (Adaptive) Surfing Championship since 2015.
“You don't get all the waves that you want — you don't even get all the waves you paddle for. So what do you do? You go out and paddle harder. That's what we're doing to do,” ISA president Fernando Aguerre told The AP. “We're going to continue to develop para-surfing around the world, including explaining why it should be part of the Paralympic Games.”
While the battle for para-surfing to be included in the next Paralympics is ongoing, Feige said she remains optimistic.
“If we can navigate the ocean with our disabilities, we have the great determination and creativity to find a solution for this problem as well,” said Feige. “We just need a chance to showcase what we can do.”
AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
FILE - Chris Blowes, of Australia, duck-dives under a wave during the U.S. Open Adaptive Surfing Championships, Sept. 8, 2023, in Oceanside, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
FILE - Chris Blowes, of Australia, goes over a wave as he competes during the U.S. Open Adaptive Surfing Championships Friday, Sept. 8, 2023, in Oceanside, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
FILE - Dariel Melendez Davial, of Costa Rica, gets ready to enter the water during the U.S. Open Adaptive Surfing Championships, Sept. 8, 2023, in Oceanside, Calif. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Israeli military said Tuesday an American activist killed in the West Bank last week was likely shot “indirectly and unintentionally” by its soldiers, drawing a strong rebuke from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the activist's family.
Israel said a criminal investigation has been launched into the killing of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old activist from Seattle who was taking part in a demonstration against settlements in the Palestinian territory. Doctors who treated Eygi, who also held Turkish citizenship, said she was shot in the head.
Blinken condemned the fatal shooting when asked about it at a news conference in London, and said the U.S. would make clear to its ally that such actions are “not acceptable.”
“No one — no one — should be shot and killed for attending a protest,” he said. “Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way they operate in the West Bank.”
Eygi's family in the U.S. released a statement saying “we are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional.”
During Friday's demonstration, clashes broke out between Palestinians throwing stones and Israeli troops firing tear gas and ammunition, according to Jonathan Pollak, an Israeli protester who witnessed the shooting of Eygi.
Pollak said the violence had subsided about a half hour before Eygi was shot, after protesters and activists had withdrawn several hundred meters (yards) away from the site of the demonstration. Pollak said he saw two Israeli soldiers mount the roof of a nearby home, train a gun in the group’s direction and fire, with one bullet hitting Eygi.
Israel said its inquiry into Eygi’s killing “found that it is highly likely that she was hit indirectly and unintentionally by (Israeli army) fire which was not aimed at her, but aimed at the key instigator of the riot.” It expressed its “deepest regret” at her death.
International Solidarity Movement, the activist group Egyi was volunteering with, said it “entirely rejects” the Israeli statement and that the “shot was aimed directly at her.”
The killing came amid a surge of violence in the West Bank since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, with increasing Israeli raids, attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis, attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and heavier military crackdowns on Palestinian protests.
Israel says it thoroughly investigates allegations of its forces killing civilians and holds them accountable. It says soldiers often have to make split-second decisions while operating in areas where militants hide among civilians. But human rights groups say soldiers are very rarely prosecuted, and even in the most shocking cases — and those captured on video — they often get relatively light sentences.
The Palestinian Authority held a funeral procession for Eygi in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday. Turkish authorities said they were working on repatriating her body to Turkey for burial in the Aegean coastal town of Didim, as per her family’s wishes.
Eygi's uncle said in an interview with the Turkish TV channel HaberTurk that she kept her visit to the West Bank secret from at least some of her family members. She said she was traveling to Jordan to help Palestinians there, he said.
"She hid the fact that she was going to Palestine. She blocked us from her social media posts so that we would not see them,” Yilmaz Eygi said.
The deaths of American citizens in the West Bank have drawn international attention, such as the fatal shooting of a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, in 2022 in the Jenin refugee camp.
Several independent investigations and reporting by The Associated Press determined that Abu Akleh was likely killed by Israeli fire. Months later, the military said there was a “high probability” one of its soldiers had mistakenly killed her but that no one would be punished.
In January 2022, Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American, died of a heart attack after Israeli troops at a checkpoint dragged him from his car and made him lie facedown, bound, temporarily gagged and blindfolded. The military ruled out criminal charges and said it was reprimanding one commander and removing two others from leadership roles for two years.
The U.S. had planned to sanction a military unit linked to abuses of Palestinians in the West Bank but ended up dropping the plan.
The deaths of Palestinians who do not have dual nationality rarely receive the same scrutiny.
Human rights groups say Israel military investigations into Palestinians' deaths reflect a pattern of impunity. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli watchdog, became so frustrated that in 2016 it halted its decades-long practice of assisting investigations and called them a “whitewash.”
Last year, an Israeli court acquitted a member of the paramilitary Border Police charged with reckless manslaughter in the deadly shooting of 32-year-old Eyad Hallaq, an autistic Palestinian man in Jerusalem’s Old City in 2020. The case had drawn comparisons to the police killing of George Floyd in the United States.
In 2017, Israeli soldier Elor Azaria was convicted for manslaughter and served nine months after he killed a wounded, incapacitated Palestinian attacker in the West Bank city of Hebron. The combat medic was caught on video fatally shooting Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, who was lying motionless on the ground.
That case deeply divided Israelis, with the military saying Azaria had clearly violated its code of ethics, while many Israelis — particularly on the nationalist right — defended his actions and accused military brass of second-guessing a soldier operating in dangerous conditions.
Associated Press reporters Matthew Lee and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s Gaza coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
This undated family photo provided by the International Solidarity Movement on Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, shows Aysenur Ezgi Eygi of Seattle. (Courtesy of the Eygi family/International Solidarity Movement via AP)
ADDS WITNESS SAYS: Two fellow activists of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who a witness says was fatally shot by Israeli soldiers while participating in an anti-settlement protest in the West Bank, carry posters with her name and photo during Eygi's funeral procession in the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
