The tragic fall of an Olympic icon born from Imperial Beach royalty
Happier times before the Alan Jr. allegations put his future in jeopardy.
For decades, the Cleland name stood for surfing royalty in San Diego’s South Bay.
Long before Alan Cleland Jr. made history as a Paris 2024 Olympian, local surfers revered his father, Al Cleland Sr., who achieved legend status when a photographer captured him dropping into an Imperial Beach barrel, a pic selected by the editor of SURFER Magazine for its June 1987 cover.
As S-REPORTER previously reported, Cleland Sr. later moved to Mexico and, for all intents and purposes, never came back to San Diego. He met the woman that would become his wife, a Mexican national, in Boca de Pascuales, a remote fishing village with uncrowded surf in the state of Colima, where Alan Cleland Jr. was born and raised.
But today, this cross-border story featuring the first Mexican to compete on the World Surf League’s Championship Tour could be completely shattered if the allegations that surfaced this week about Cleland Jr. – including sexual assault and abuse – prove to be true.
Dual International Suspensions May Block the Road to LA28
The World Surf League (WSL) and the International Surfing Association (ISA), the sport’s main governing bodies, have already suspended the 24-year-old surfer. The WSL cited “allegations of a deeply serious nature.”
According to media reports, Cleland Jr. is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage Australian girl from New South Wales at a private gathering in August following the Outerknown Tahiti Pro. The matter is currently being reviewed by French Polynesian prosecutors and Australian federal law enforcement.
Finishing the regular season at 24th in the world, Cleland Jr. missed qualifying for the postseason after a disappointing performance at the Lexus Trestles Pro, held last month just north of Oceanside.
The dual bans would appear to not only end Cleland Jr.’s 2026 season but also his prospects for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Additionally, Quiksilver and Monster Energy terminated their sponsorships with the sandy-haired surfer.
Whistleblower Noah Klapp Breaks the Silence
It turns out this isn’t the first time allegations of a sexual nature were leveled against Cleland Jr.
After hearing about the Alan Cleland Jr. allegations, professional surfer and former ISA Junior World Champion Noah Klapp came forward with her own account of being physically, sexually, and psychologically abused by Cleland Jr.
In a no-holds-barred statement published on her personal Instagram account on her 23rd birthday, Klapp detailed what she described as a pattern of severe physical, sexual, and psychological abuse during the one-year period that she dated Cleland Jr. as an underage 17-year-old.
She alleged that Cleland Jr. routinely used his physical size to dominate her, explicitly claiming he would “pin her down on the bed” and “grab her wrists with all his strength” to trap her in their room.
Klapp, originally from Germany, reported that Cleland Jr. sexually assaulted and raped her “many times,” noting that she’s still healing from the trauma.
She said she expressly warned Cleland Jr. that if she ever found out he victimized another girl, she would go public. When Klapp learned of the alleged assault against a minor in Tahiti, she found the courage to break her silence, for which she has received an outpouring of support from the likes of Kelly Slater, Tyler Wright, and Filipe Toledo.
While the international surf community reacts to the Alan Cleland Jr. allegations with dismay, the political response in Cleland Jr.’s birthplace of Colima, Mexico, has been met with silence. S-REPORTER reached out to Colima Governor Indira Vizcaíno but she declined to comment for this story. The Spanish-language media, including major publications like El País México, La Jornada, TUDN, and Uno TV, are covering the story.
Meanwhile, the Mexican Surfing Federation issued the following statement on their Instagram page: “Abuse has no place in surfing. While the presumption of innocence is a legal right, it is not a reason to remain silent in the face of acts that threaten the integrity of our community.”
An Unprecedented Precedent
The WSL’s suspension of Cleland Jr. marks the first time an active, Championship Tour surfer has been sidelined due to criminal allegations of sexual wrongdoing.
In 2014, Raoni Monteiro’s received a 20-month ban for anti-doping violations, but that’s small potatoes compared to what Cleland Jr. is facing. In June 2023, former WSL CEO Erik Logan—who previously served as the president of the Oprah Winfrey Network—was abruptly fired mid-season under a heavy cone of silence and mandatory non-disclosure agreements. Surf media later revealed his sudden ousting was in response to complaints from tour surfers about Logan’s alleged erratic behavior while intoxicated and inappropriate workplace conduct.
As of today, Alan Cleland Jr. has not released a public statement regarding the allegations and, in a legal sense, remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
But with sponsors cutting ties, suspensions sidelining him from his chosen profession, and criminal charges a distinct possibility, it doesn’t look good. The proud Cleland legacy that began on the waves of Imperial Beach has now, it would appear, been terribly tarnished.
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