Stokes is a surf mercenary, a California-ringer, recruited by a more or less non-surfing nation to compete as a Canadian in Punta Rocas, Peru, at a Pan Am Games qualifying event beginning Dec. 5. “But my overall goal is to help my Canadian team reach the actual Pan Am Games in 2019. “Before surfing I did all these other sports, like soccer and dance, but surfing was so different from anything else,” Stokes says. (Being somewhat skeptical of the tidiness of this cross-border arrangement, I subjected Stokes to a pop Canadian quiz when we spoke by phone. But for all her Canadian credibility, a niggling question persists: why didn’t Stokes, California state champ, want to surf for the American team?

Source: National Post November 30, 2017 22:30 UTC