Twelve surfers. Ten days. A remote stretch of South African coastline. No priority, no fixed venue, and absolutely no guarantee of what Mother Nature is going to serve up.
The full event premieres September 25, 2026, on Red Bull TV and YouTube.
Competitive surfing is heading somewhere different in 2026.
The Natural Selection Tour (NST) Surf event is coming to remote South Africa, bringing a hand-picked crew of twelve of the world’s most progressive surfers — eight men and four women — for a week of chasing whatever the coastline decides to throw at them.
In just two years, Natural Selection Surf has managed to make competitive surfing feel exciting again. And not just contest exciting. The kind of exciting that makes you want to watch every wave because you genuinely don’t know what could happen next.
Part of that comes down to the format.
There is no priority. No single venue. No grinding through mediocre conditions because the schedule says it’s contest day. Sessions are judged on Creativity, Risk, Execution, Difficulty and Overall Impression, with the surfers moving with the conditions rather than forcing the conditions to work for the event.
If the format is the vessel, the lineup is the engine.
And the 2026 South Africa field is stacked.
Reigning champions Milla “Coco” Brown and Soli Bailey return to defend their titles, joined by five surfers who made last year’s finals and seven competitors making their NST debut. Every surfer has been selected for the same reason: they have built careers around surfing waves that demand commitment, creativity and a healthy disregard for the consequences.
For the South African edition, that includes one of our own.
South African Eli Beukes gets the nod as the event’s local invite, putting one of the country’s most exciting young surfers directly into a field of international heavyweights.
And that’s no small invitation.
The coastline being brought into play for Natural Selection is capable of throwing up everything from long, open point-break walls to shallow, unforgiving reef slabs. For the visiting surfers, it will be unfamiliar territory. For Eli, there is a different kind of advantage: understanding what makes South African waves tick.
Local knowledge won’t make the waves any safer, but it might make the difference when the ocean starts doing what it does best — changing the rules.
Eli now gets the chance to test himself against surfers who have made a name for themselves charging some of the most consequential waves on the planet.
WOMEN
Milla “Coco” Brown — Australia
Returning champion
Kirra Pinkerton — USA
2025 finalist
Eden Walla — USA
Sanoa Dempfle-Olin — Canada
MEN
Soli Bailey — Australia
Returning champion
Noah Beschen — Hawaii
2025 finalist
Eithan Osborne — USA
2025 finalist
Eli Beukes — South Africa
Local invite
Mikey Wright — Australia
Balaram Stack — USA
Jarvis Earle — Australia
Hughie Vaughan — Australia
Featured Image: ©Van Gysen/Now Now Media