Camille Spaccarotella: Singapore's First Surfing Representative at Asian Games
In a country better known for glassy reservoirs than breaking surf, Camille Spaccarotella is about to paddle into uncharted waters for Singapore.
The 21-year-old will stand alone in Tahara, Japan, later this month as Singapore’s first-ever surfing representative at the Asian Games, where the sport makes its continental debut. She is not going just to make up the numbers. She wants a medal.
“I do want to have a podium finish. That is my aim for this,” she said. The ambition is clear. So is the perspective. “At the same time, I need to also recognise that this is a huge step in my athletic career as well, and I'm just really grateful for that.”
From Bali holiday to Games debut
The story started far from any grand plan. A family holiday to Bali about a decade ago, a board on the sand, a few tentative paddles. The usual tourist flirtation with surfing. For most, it ends there.
For Spaccarotella, it didn’t.
The thrill of standing up on a wave turned quickly from novelty to habit, then from habit to obsession. But the first time she tried to test herself against others, the ocean bit back.
“I did my first ever competition in 2020, I believe, but obviously it was not a very serious one,” she recalled. The memory still stings. “I was so stressed during that competition, I didn't catch a single wave in my heat. So I decided maybe this is not for me.”
Many would have stopped there. She walked away, for a while.
Then came another local event in Bali a couple of years later. This time she stayed on her board, stayed in the heat, stayed in the fight. She finished third. The result didn’t just put her on a podium; it pulled her back into competitive surfing.
Chasing waves abroad
From that point, milestones came quickly.
In June 2023, Spaccarotella pulled on Singapore colours at the Asian Surfing Championships in the Maldives and came close to a medal, narrowly missing out on the podium. It was a significant step up, against stronger fields and more seasoned rivals, and it confirmed she belonged at that level.
All of this has been built on an unconventional training base. Singapore has coastline, but not the kind a surfer dreams of. There are no reliable, ocean-like breaks, no regular swells to bank on. To chase her sport seriously, she has had to chase waves overseas.
Bali has effectively become home ground. She spends up to four months a year there, logging hours in the water, sharpening technique, learning to read different conditions. The island’s breaks have shaped her style and her confidence.
Her calendar has stretched beyond Indonesia as well. Events in India, South Korea and the Philippines have taken her into new line-ups and against deeper fields. Those trips have doubled as education.
“It not only changed the way I surfed and how I approached surfing, but it also allowed me to discover more parts of the world and connect with different people in the surf community as well,” she said.
She has leaned on that community. “They have been competing for years, and they've gained so much experience and knowledge in this domain that they were very willing to share what they had learned.”
Breaking ground for Singapore
In 2024, the breakthrough arrived: Spaccarotella became Singapore’s first surfer to qualify for the Asian Games. A decade on from that Bali holiday, she now carries a flag as well as a board.
The surfing competition in Tahara starts on Sep 25. Conditions there can be fickle, but the field is not. Regional heavyweights Japan and Indonesia are expected to set the standard, backed by deep talent pools and established surf cultures.
Spaccarotella will be an outlier in that environment – a surfer from a city-state with almost no natural waves, taking on athletes who grew up with surf breaks on their doorstep. She knows the scale of the challenge. She wants it anyway.
Pushing a new wave at home
Her ambitions stretch beyond a single event.
Spaccarotella talks openly about what her journey might mean for the sport back home, where surfing remains niche and, in practical terms, difficult. Without consistent ocean-like waves, Singaporean surfers are forced to travel just to train properly.
She believes infrastructure can change that.
“What the next step could be is really to bring in a proper wave pool that generates ocean-like waves, and that's what will bring in, I think, a new generation of surfers here,” she said.
She points to South Korea, where wave pools have helped foster a competitive scene despite a lack of world-class natural surf. The right facility in Singapore, she argues, could be transformative.
“It could be a huge game changer … and more people would be willing to try the sport.”
For now, the focus is on Japan and a historic first appearance in Singapore colours. The waves in Tahara will decide whether her Asian Games debut comes with a medal. What happens after might decide whether she remains a lone pioneer – or the first name in a long line of Singapore surfers to follow.
