Eyes On LA 2028: India Surfing Coach Samai Reboul Charts Long-Term Vision Ahead Of Asian Games 2026

India has qualified for Asian Games surfing for the first time. A four-member national squad is training in Mahabalipuram under head coach Samai Reboul for the 2026 Games in Aichi-Nagoya. The surfing competition starts at Pacific Long Beach on September 25 and will feature men’s and women’s shortboard events.

India will field two surfers each in the men’s and women’s shortboard competition. Kishore Kumar and Sivaraj Babu will compete in the men’s section while Kamali Moorty of Tamil Nadu and Sugar Shanti Banarse of Goa will line up in the women’s field. Surfing is among six sports making their Asian Games debut and the event will offer quota places for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

India’s first qualification for Asian Games surfing marks a turning point for the sport at home. It brings a bigger stage, more attention and a direct route to the Olympics.

Team And Coaches

Four athletes form the national contingent. Kishore Kumar joins Sivaraj Babu in the men's shortboard category. In the women's event, Tamil Nadu's Kamali Moorty and Goa's Sugar Shanti Banarse will mount the nation's challenge across the heats.

India’s coaching team is led by Samai, with Sanjay Selvamani as deputy. Samai was appointed head coach by the Indian Surfing Federation in 2024 and guided India to a historic bronze medal at the Asian Surfing Championships. He also led the national selection camps and the squad’s high-performance preparation for the Asian Games.

Selvamani brings proven tournament experience. A Kovalam native who helped launch competitive surfing across the country, the professional instructor featured in India's inaugural line-up at the ISA World Surfing Games. He now channels that global background into training the squad.

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Samai’s Auroville Roots

Samai calls himself “Indian”.

He holds a French passport but says India is home because he has spent more than half his life in Auroville in Puducherry. “My father is French and mother is Basque. They first heard about Sri Aurobindo and Auroville through friends while living in remote northern Spain. They were immediately intrigued. My father first came on his own to see what it was all about and within a short time of coming back we had our bags packed and were moving to India,” 41-year-old Samai told SAI Media.

Auroville shaped that journey. Its sunny beaches and quiet setting draw foreigners from around the world, and Samai says surfing helped him settle into life there. “It didn’t take us long to find friends and feel at home. Surfing played a big role in giving me a place to feel comfortable in. Being in the ocean felt like home and I would spend as much time as I could in the water, much to the annoyance of my parents and teachers,” Samai told SAI Media.

His roots now matter on the national stage. The coach leading India’s Asian Games push came through the same coastline and surf culture that helped build the sport in the country.

Building Indian Surfing

Samai took charge in 2024.

He was appointed head coach ahead of the Asian Surfing Championships in Thulusdhoo, Maldives, and says the move followed years of work in the sport. “Getting there was the result of a natural progression that happened through a combination of passion, experience and chance. I worked as an instructor and managed Kallialay Surf School for more than 10 years. Through this experience I always wanted to develop and grow as an instructor and I gained my ISA coaching and judging qualifications,” Samai told SAI Media.

The results came quickly. He coached the national team at the Asian Surfing Championships in the Maldives and helped it win a historic bronze medal, a result that gave Indian surfing belief ahead of the Asian Games. “When a sport enters an event like the Asian Games, it gets a completely different level of recognition. For the athletes, it means they can represent a developing surfing nation on one of the biggest sporting stages in Asia. For young people watching in India, it also showcases surfing as a serious sporting pathway. As a coach, it is also a great responsibility. We have been working towards this for some time, and now the athletes have the opportunity to show what Indian surfing can do,” Samai told SAI Media.

India has the coastline for it. The country’s 7,000-plus kilometres of coast make it one of the more promising new surfing frontiers, with the best waves rolling in between May and September. Organised surfing began to take shape in 2011 when the national governing body was formed and recognised by the International Surfing Association and the Asian Surfing Federation. The first national championship followed in 2013.

The calendar has grown since then. What started with one contest has become a National Surf Series spread across several stops, including the Indian Open of Surfing in Mangaluru, the Mahabs Point Break Challenge in Mahabalipuram, the Covelong Classic in Kovalam, the Puducherry Surf Open, the International Surfing Festival in Kerala and the Little Andaman Pro in the Andaman Islands.

Samai says the next step needs patience and backing. “What we need now is time and investment. Surfing cultures take time to develop. India is building that now. We are seeing better competitions, better coaching, more young surfers coming through and more athletes getting international experience. The fact that India qualified for the 2026 Asian Games is itself an important step in that development. I would say we are clearly moving in the right direction,” the head coach told SAI Media.

Olympic Pathway Vision

The target goes beyond Aichi-Nagoya.

During his pre-National Sports Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India needed to take surfing and climbing seriously. He said the country’s natural resources were tailor-made for those sports and that India must compete at the Olympic level. Samai agrees, but he frames the task as long-term system building rather than a quick push.

“The Olympics is definitely part of the long-term vision, but to get there an important objective is to create sustainable pathways for Indian surfers to develop from a young age and eventually compete at the highest international level. The 2026 Asian Games are an important step.

“After that, we need to build towards the 2028 Olympics and beyond. For me, success would be having Indian surfers who are regularly competing internationally, travelling with the needed support, understanding professional competition and being capable of qualifying for major events. If we do that properly, Olympic qualification, the ultimate goal, becomes a consequence of a strong system rather than a one-off objective,” Samai told SAI Media.

That vision is also personal. Auroville has a strong spiritual tradition and Samai says surfing connects directly with it. “For me, the connection between spirituality and surfing is very strong. The ocean is very good at reminding us that we are not in control. You can prepare perfectly, paddle out and then the waves can be completely different from what you expected. So, you learn to adapt. You learn patience. You learn to observe.

“To surf well, you need to be completely present. You cannot be thinking about yesterday or tomorrow—you are entirely focused on reading the wave and responding to what is happening in that exact moment. Known as flow state, it allows one to reach a deep state of mediation,” explained Samai to SAI Media.

India’s first Asian Games surfing qualification now gives that vision a competitive shape. It brings national recognition, more structured support and a route to Los Angeles 2028 through the quota places on offer in Aichi-Nagoya.