Nineteen-year-old Christchurch longboarder, Jack Tyro, has just become the first New Zealander to earn a spot on the WSL World Longboard Tour, and the first to reach the upper echelon of the sport’s competitive ranks since Paige Hareb and Ricardo Christie competed on the World Championship Tour back in 2019.
Seven years is a long time in any sport. In New Zealand surfing, it has felt even longer.
Tyro was at work when his phone buzzed. A notification, nothing elaborate: “Hey Jack, you got it.”
“I was like, oh, sick,” he says, laughing at what those words actually meant. “I made a whole heap of phone calls after that.”
The wildcard didn’t come easily. Tyro placed second in the qualifier series – close, but not enough to earn an automatic berth. So he did what probably wouldn’t have occurred to most: he wrote a letter. Jack told the WSL he was keen. Then he waited.
“I sort of knew I was in the run for it,” he says. “Luckily I was able to do a little bit of preparation beforehand, just in case.”
That quiet preparation – doing the work before the result arrives – is a recurring theme in how Tyro operates.
The Tour Ahead
The 2026 WSL World Longboard Tour is a four-stop global circuit that kicks off in July at Huntington Beach, California, before heading to Bells Beach in November, La Union in the Philippines in January, and culminating at the title-deciding event in Surf City, El Salvador in March 2027.
For 2026 there is a catch: Only the top 12 men and women after the first three events will make the final – only they will have the chance to compete for the world title in El Salvador.
Tyro has surfed all four venues. That matters to him.
“Last year they had a wave pool, which I hadn’t been to before,” he explains. “To not have that and instead have four contests at waves I’ve already been to is absolutely awesome. It really helps training-wise. I know the travel, the places and the waves.”
Tyro is based in Dunedin right now, studying Quantity Surveying at the University of Otago and surfing St Clair Beach in “near-constant five-foot swell”. He describes it, with characteristic understatement, as working out pretty well for him.
The funding reality is less tidy. Eight months, four international contests, and a budget that currently doesn’t exist.
“With surfing in New Zealand, there’s not much money in the surfing community – it’s all self-funded,” he says plainly. “So I’m putting myself out to sponsors, hopefully getting a bit of backing to help get around.”
… there’s not much money in the surfing community – it’s all self-funded. So I’m putting myself out to sponsors, hopefully getting a bit of backing to help get around.”
His current support includes board sponsor Keyo out of Sydney, New Zealand clothing brand RPM, his local surf shop Exit Surf in Christchurch, and he has been getting some guidance from Surfing New Zealand. He’s also part of the Hyundai Pinnacle Programme, a high-performance support network for New Zealand’s top young athletes and academics.
The North Star
It was through the Hyundai programme – specifically experiences with Spirit of Adventure and Outward Bound – that Tyro encountered the concept that now shapes how he thinks about everything: the North Star.
“Their main thing is this concept really trying to identify where you’re going through life and how you’re going to make a difference,” he explains.
Of course, becoming World Longboard Champion is a goal. But the programme pushed him past that.
“They ask you, ‘Once you achieve this goal, where do you go from that? Do you just stop?’ And that really made me question – why do I want to become World Longboard Champion? What happens if I do achieve it? Because if I do get that, what do I do after that? It seems almost empty.”
The answer he arrived at reaches well beyond the tour. Tyro wants to use his Quantity Surveying degree to bridge two passions he has: the construction industry, and ocean sustainability. He hopes to champion building in new ways that make less of a mess of the environment he surfs in.
“That’s why I surf, it’s why I also do my study, and I hope something comes of it,” he says. “I know I’ll never fully make a massive difference. But I know I can always work towards that.”
It’s a remarkably clear-eyed worldview for a 19-year-old with a world title on his mind.
“That really made me question – why do I want to become World Longboard Champion? What happens if I do achieve it? Because if I do get that, what do I do after that? It seems almost empty.”
Keeping It Real
Ask Jack Tyro how he’s stayed so grounded – genuinely likeable, present, not yet lost in the self-absorption that elite sport can breed (and sometimes demands) – and his answer is disarmingly honest.
“I’ve kept my composure by remembering the things I’ve sacrificed even through primary school – the amount of sleepovers and mate hangouts that I’ve missed has just been insane. So I’ve got so much respect for my mates who have always been there for me and I always like giving back to them. I don’t want to talk about surfing when I’m hanging out with them. I want to see what they’ve been up to. I want to party. I want to hang out with them, enjoy the time we got. Same goes for my girlfriend and everything around me.”
He pauses, then gets to the heart of it.
“I make it about surfing when surfing really comes down to it, but it’s not necessarily my life. It has made a life for me, which has been awesome, but there’s a lot more to it than just the surfing part or who’s current world champion and stuff like that. I’m trying to be conscious of being a good human. If you do the best you can, then you get to enjoy what comes from that. So I do that, not only in surfing, but in my overall life, and it works … so I’ll just keep doing it.”
“I’m trying to be conscious of being a good human. If you do the best you can, then you get to enjoy what comes from that. So I do that, not only in surfing, but in my overall life, and it works … so I’ll just keep doing it.”
His goal for the tour is straightforward: make the top eight across the first three events to qualify for El Salvador, then compete for the world title. He sounds as confident as he needs to be, no more.
“It’s always me against me in there,” he says. “It’s not so much who’s in the tour or what waves it is. It’s just me trying to do the best I possibly can, and everything that comes from that is just what happens.”
The phone call to his parents after the wildcard news came through was, by his own account, more emotional for them than for him.
“Luckily I called my dad and my mum was sitting right next to him,” he says, grinning. “Mum and dad had their moment and I was just like, ‘Are you guys still there?’ Dad’s voice went super high – it was really cool.”