Kanoa Igarashi

Honestly, before I knew anything about Kanoa Igarashi, I had this lazy mental image of surfing as a beach lifestyle thing — cool, sure, but not exactly a serious athletic pursuit. He completely flipped that for me. Born in 1997, this guy has spent his entire adult life chasing waves across the globe at the highest competitive level, representing Japan on the Championship Tour and making it to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic final on home soil — that must have been a surreal kind of pressure. What gets me is that surfing throws a completely unpredictable natural variable at you every single heat, and he still manages to make it look fluid and inevitable. There's a quiet confidence in how he carries himself too, nothing flashy, just a guy who clearly bet everything on one thing and went all in. That's the kind of focus I genuinely respect.

Kanoa Igarashi (born October 1, 1997) is a Japanese professional surfer. He competes internationally on the World Surf League Championship Tour, representing Japan at the highest levels of competitive surfing. His first name Kanoa, of Hawaiian origin, reflects his deep connection to surf culture. He is active on Instagram under the handle kanoaigarashi.

Name (English)

Kanoa Igarashi

Name (Japanese)

五十嵐カノア

Reading

いがらし

Born

October 1, 1997 (age 28)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Ox

Origin

Japan

Occupation

Surfer

Motto

Private

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kanoaigarashi/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%94%E5%8D%81%E5%B5%90%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8E%E3%82%A2

Tags

• Surfer

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.