Lost Shore Surf Resort near Edinburgh is now part of Britain's Olympic surfing programme. On 8 October 2026, GB Surfing named the resort one of its National Performance Centres and one of its Olympic Training Facilities. GB Surfing selects, prepares and manages British surfers for the Olympic Games, and its athletes now get year-round access to Lost Shore's 52-module Wavegarden Cove as they work towards qualifying for the Los Angeles 2028 Games.
What the deal covers
GB Surfing's athletes get access to the wave pool and Lost Shore's wider high-performance set-up, including Surf Lab, a research facility created with Edinburgh Napier University. The resort has accommodation, recovery facilities and food on site, minutes from Edinburgh Airport, so athletes and coaches can train, stay and recover in one place.
"We're very excited to be partnering with Lost Shore," said Mick Cain, GB Surfing's head of performance. "The fact that the team are all surfers is a huge asset, and they've created a facility that provides an incredible in-water training environment, with a wide variety of wave types to challenge and develop our athletes."
The announcement does not give the length of the arrangement or the number of athletes involved. GB Surfing's programme has £1.525 million of UK Sport funding across the LA Olympic cycle, including an extra £150,000 awarded this year.
Why a wave pool
For a performance programme, the appeal is repetition. In the ocean, conditions decide how many waves a surfer gets and what kind they are. In a pool, athletes can work on the same types of wave again and again and ride many more good ones in a session.
"Wave pools have been a game-changer for my training," said Charlotte Mulley, who finished fourth at the 2025 EuroSurf championships and is in GB Surfing's Olympic squad. "Being able to surf so many quality waves in a single session makes a huge difference. It's something you just can't replicate in the ocean."
Scott Erlandsen, head coach of Norwegian Surfing, described the coaching side when Norway signed up in September: "The athletes can surf a wave and, as they paddle back out to the peak, we can give them direct feedback immediately."
Four national programmes now use Lost Shore
GB Surfing is the fourth national surfing body to choose the resort:
- Scottish Surfing has used it as its National Performance Centre since 2025.
- Irish Surfing made it its National Performance Centre and Olympic training facility in June 2026, and the primary training base for its elite programme.
- Norway's federation, Brettforbundet, chose it as its National Performance Centre in September 2026.
- GB Surfing followed in October.
"Having GB Surfing join Irish, Scottish and Norwegian Surfing also demonstrates the wider role Lost Shore can play," said Andy Hadden, the resort's founder. He also framed the deal as a route into the national programme for Scottish surfers: "Scotland has an increasingly strong pipeline of young talent, and by bringing GB Surfing's performance programme closer to that talent we want to help open up greater access to expertise, resources and ultimately funding."
Hadden had the Olympics in mind from the start. When Lost Shore opened in November 2024, he said: "Who knows, this might be the training ground for Scotland's next Olympic surf champion."
The road to LA 2028
Olympic surfing stays in the ocean. At the Los Angeles 2028 Games it will be held at Lower Trestles in San Clemente, California, and the field is small: 48 surfers, 24 men and 24 women, with no more than two per gender from each National Olympic Committee.
For Britain, the next step is the ISA World Surfing Games at Punta Rocas and El Bosque in Peru, from 6 to 15 November. GB Surfing says the event is a team qualifier only, so no British surfer can win an individual Olympic place there. The first individual chance comes at the 2027 EuroSurf championships, whose date and venue have not been announced.
Mulley is on the British team for Peru with Patrick Langdon-Dark, Luke Dillon, Belle Betteridge, Harry de Roth and Raya Campbell.
What it means for visitors
The announcement covers access for GB Surfing's athletes and does not mention public sessions or booking. Upcoming public events on Lost Shore's calendar include an Advanced Surf Weekend with Scottish National Champion Craig McLachlan, from 6 to 8 November, and the Lock-In, which hands the lagoon to a group of 40 from 24 to 27 November, from £620 a person. Prices and wave settings for regular sessions are on our Lost Shore page.
Good to Know
Lost Shore is one of two open surf parks in the UK in our directory, and both are Wavegarden Coves. The other is The Wave near Bristol, where GB Surfing says BBC Breakfast filmed its Olympic hopefuls this summer. Our UK guide compares the two.
