Australian surfers to use artificial surf breaks to prepare for Tokyo Olympics

Australian surfers will seek to have an advantage over the competition ahead of the sport's Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2020, after plans for artificial 'surf breaks' - to be built in the nation's major cities - were advanced.

Based on a Spanish design called The Cove, three baseball diamond-shaped surf pools will be built in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney in the coming months and years, in order to give the nation's top surfers the best and most consistent preparation possible ahead of the 2020 Games.

Australia's national surfing coach, Andy King, said that while other attempts at creating artificial surf zones had been deemed "successful" in the past, many were "too soft," and The Cove's design was able to accurately simulate surfing in the ocean.

"They have finally replicated something that's got similar power to the ocean, with the unpredictability of the ocean," King said in comments published in Thursday's newspapers.

"You can get the repetition and practice that you need for training in a really short amount of time without the surfers turning kind of robotic - you get training done in three or four days that would take you three or four months in the ocean," he noted.

The Cove design ensures that surfers ride swells of up to 2.1 meters, with the average ride expected to last about 18 seconds. King said that Australia's Olympic surfers would be able to cram "months" worth of practice into just a few days.

The first artificial surf center is slated to open in Melbourne by the end of the year, while Sydney is planning to build one in its Olympic Park. There are also plans for a center to open in Perth ahead of the Olympics. Endit