World Surf League | Jai Ashok Mahtani
I’m Jai Ashok Mahtani, South Africa. I’m sharing with you World surf championship leagues.
World Surf League or WSL was established in 1976 under the name of International Professional Surfing by Fred Hemmings and Randy Rarick. The headquarters of the WSL is in Santa Monica, California, and is the world’s largest international surfing association.
There were many predecessors to the World Surf League (or International Professional Surfing as it was known before) but WSL is the only international surfing association as many of its competitors including the International Surfing Association(ISA), or previously known as the International Surfing Association(ISF), represents individual professional surfers and not surfers that represent any particular country.
WSL started hosting women’s surfing events as well in the year of 1999 and announced equal pay to male and female WSL event champions on September 5, 2018. This decision was carried out by the CEO Stephanie Goldschmidt to ‘raise’ the level of women’s surfing and was integrated into WSL’s 2019 schedule.
The current World Surf League’s champions are Brazil’s Italo Ferriera (Men) and Hawaiin Carrisa Moore (women).
The WSL Facebook page has over 6.8 million likes, more than the NHL (National Hockey League), and Major League Soccer. It is also reported that 28 million hours of WSL’s content was consumed online. This makes World Surf League the 3rd most-watched sports league online only after the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Seeing such a tremendous rise in fans and participants alike, Facebook signed an exclusive rights deal with the WSL for 30 million USD for 2 years in January 2018. This meant that all events of the World Surf League were broadcasted live on Facebook and were free to watch by every profile.
However, it is interesting to note that in a statement by CEO Stephanie Goldschmidt that the viewership of WSL has increased by a whopping 25% after canceling the exclusivity rights given to Facebook. The deal fell through as Facebook could run ads on WSL’s live streams but did not share any revenue nor did it allow WSL to display ads.
The latest season of the WSL (2020) was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the WSL has not lost hope and aims to start the 2021 qualifying season in November 2020 for women in Maui, Hawaii, and December 2020 for men in Oahu, Hawaii. This will only be allowed if all preparations match the state government’s guidelines and are deemed safe for participants. Safety protocols for international travel will be ensured says the WSL and that the 2021 Championship tour will end with the new ‘The WSL Finals,' a single-day World Title Event in September 2021 in which the top 5 men/women surfers will battle each other out individually for their respective titles in a surf-off amongst the world’s toughest waves.
Rules And Regulations
All participants are judged on a ranking system of 0.1 to 10 accordingly:
Judges
The number of judges varies with the type and size of the event as follows:
Criteria
Although the criterion for judging a surfer depends on the type of wave, event, and other constantly changing factors, it can be loosely defined into these 5 sections:
These points are not taken into account during longboarding competitions but are presented to the participants to get a uniform grip on the overall competition.
Right Of Way
As mentioned above there are no strict predefined rules for competitions. All of them vary according to the individual event and surfing conditions on that day. But all of them revolve around the single rule of Right Of Way.
Rules And Regulations
All participants are judged on a ranking system of 0.1 to 10 accordingly:
- 0–1.9 = Poor
- 2.0–3.9 = Fair
- 4.0–5.9 = Average
- 6.0–7.9 = Good
- 8.0–10.0 = Excellent
Judges
The number of judges varies with the type and size of the event as follows:
- QS 1,000 - QS 3,000 (lower level competition) Qualifying Series events are required to have a six judge panel with four judges on each heat.
- A QS 4,000 - QS 6,000 (intermediate level competition) Qualifying Series event requires seven judges with five of those judges on each heat.
- At QS 5,000 - QS 10,000 (top-level competition) Qualifying Series events there are only 3 judges allowed from any one region.
Criteria
Although the criterion for judging a surfer depends on the type of wave, event, and other constantly changing factors, it can be loosely defined into these 5 sections:
- Commitment and degree of difficulty
- Innovative and progressive maneuvers
- Combination of major maneuvers
- Variety of maneuvers
- Speed, power, and flow
These points are not taken into account during longboarding competitions but are presented to the participants to get a uniform grip on the overall competition.
Right Of Way
As mentioned above there are no strict predefined rules for competitions. All of them vary according to the individual event and surfing conditions on that day. But all of them revolve around the single rule of Right Of Way.
Right Of Way means that if a surfer has the inside position, i.e he/she is nearer to the breaking of a wave, then that particular surfer has a Right Of Way. Intersecting a surfer who has a Right Of Way leads to the call of interference and subsequent penalties. The Right Of Way is always considered even if the other surfer reaches the wave first. If a surfer has an inside position, he/she has the Right Of Way, and all other surfers if they intersect can be subjected to penalties.
Another rule that is uniform over the competition is a surfer having a set maximum number of waves he/she can catch in heat. If a surfer tries to catch or does catch more waves after they’ve reached their event threshold, they are penalized for interference as this hinders the ability of other participants to catch waves in heat.
A surfer also cannot interfere with other participant’s maneuvering tactics and paddling. If they do they will again be penalized for interference.
The interference penalties are called on by judges and are then voted on to be declared an actual penalty. A majority of judge votes are required for the surfer to be penalized. The scores of the penalized surfer are deducted according to the number of waves that are being judged:
If a surfer has committed 2 interferences, then he/she will further be deducted 50% of his/her best wave score. If a surfer exceeds 2 interferences in heat then he/she is disqualified from the competition and asked to leave the event area. The surfer who was subjected to the interference is given another wave in the heat if it falls under the time frame.
Check out more information and further updates on the official World Surf League website here.
Another rule that is uniform over the competition is a surfer having a set maximum number of waves he/she can catch in heat. If a surfer tries to catch or does catch more waves after they’ve reached their event threshold, they are penalized for interference as this hinders the ability of other participants to catch waves in heat.
A surfer also cannot interfere with other participant’s maneuvering tactics and paddling. If they do they will again be penalized for interference.
The interference penalties are called on by judges and are then voted on to be declared an actual penalty. A majority of judge votes are required for the surfer to be penalized. The scores of the penalized surfer are deducted according to the number of waves that are being judged:
- Three or more waves are being considered- one wave score is dropped.
- The top two waves are being considered- 50% of the second wave is dropped.
If a surfer has committed 2 interferences, then he/she will further be deducted 50% of his/her best wave score. If a surfer exceeds 2 interferences in heat then he/she is disqualified from the competition and asked to leave the event area. The surfer who was subjected to the interference is given another wave in the heat if it falls under the time frame.
Check out more information and further updates on the official World Surf League website here.
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