After the WSL provisionally suspended a 2026 Men’s Championship Tour competitor over serious allegations tied to a private Tahiti gathering in August, German professional surfer Noah Klapp publicly shared her account of alleged physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by her former boyfriend, Al Cleland Jr. SurfGirl Magazine reflects on the courage it takes to speak out and the duty to make surfing safer for women.
The WSL did not name the surfer in its Oct. 11 statement; reporting has identified Cleland. Klapp, who said the relationship began when she was 17 and that she is now 23, wrote that news of further allegations involving an underage girl led her to break years of silence. As of the reporting we checked, Cleland had not been charged and had not publicly responded, and Tahitian authorities had not confirmed a local investigation.
Source: SurfGirl Magazine. Headline and summary belong to the original publisher. We link, we don’t copy.
