Episode description

Surfing looks amazing fun – seeing a surfer crouched on a board riding a big wave at speed must be an incredible feeling.

But it’s not a well-known sport in Africa, despite nearly 40 countries on the continent having coastlines, with waves breaking along hundreds of miles of beaches.

Four African surfers did make it to the current Olympic games, from South Africa and Morocco. But their ratio of three men to one woman is a good illustration of the fact that it’s a male dominated sport in Africa.

So today we’re going to talk to two pioneering female surfers about why they surf, and what challenges they’ve overcome to become women who surf.

Guests: Maryam el Gardoum, a champion surfer who runs Dihya Surf School, the first female-led surf school in Morocco, and Dihya Nasri, who is known as the only female surfer in Algeria.