ASP International Judges respond to Adriano De Souza’s 8.20 floater criticism – Surfing news
Ever since Brazil’s Adriano de Souza defeated Australia’s Owen Wright in the quarter-final heat of the 2011 Billabong Rio Pro on May 20th at the beach-break of Barra Da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Association of Surfing Professionals
(ASP) Judges have been under fire by the internet surfing community for awarding the Brazilian 8.23 for his floater on his final scoring wave, which eventually sealed the fate of the heat with him as the winner.
Responding to the criticism, the ASP International Judging Panel has issued a statement on its website to justify the score that was given to the 24-year-old De Souza’s floater. As per the statement, the Rio de Janeiro-based surfer’s second wave was actually
bigger than what the footage projected. The camera had failed to cover the bottom half of the wave, which makes it impossible to analyse the heat by simply relying on the Heats on Demand version of the coverage.
The Heats on Demand is coverage given to the competition heats by the event sponsors. This basically means that during the Billabong Rio Pro, only Billabong owned the broadcasting rights. They hire contractors to keep the cameras rolling during the competition
in order to deliver the Heats on Demand. ASP itself has no right to cover its own event.
The statement by the ASP International Judge Panel said that they are focusing on making improvements in the event’s current Heats On Demand products as the current format is flawed.
Continuing to further explain the reason for giving De Souza’s floater an 8.23, the statement read that De Souza pulled off his manoeuvre on a critical section of the wave which was a lot shorter and harder to ride as compared to the smaller waves that ran
further but were relatively easier to ride. The Judges claimed that Wright’s rode the smaller and easier waves in contrast to De Souza, who locked a more difficult wave. The score that the surfers got for their single-turn waves on the last day of the event
were higher than usual because of the prevailing conditions.
Talking about the Australian surfer’s two waves, the ASP International Judging Panel said, “Our job as the judging panel is to score the surfers that are pushing the criteria to the limit. Both of Owen's airs were good manoeuvres (they are also the bread
and butter for nearly every surfer on tour these days), but executed on the easy sections of the waves.”
However, commenting on De Souza’s floater, the Judging Panel said, “Adriano's floater was done on such a critical part of the wave. I would probably add that if Owen's first turns on both scoring waves were bigger or more critical, then both waves would
have been scored higher.”
While Wright managed to hold his composure even though he was understandably upset at finding De Souza’s single move got an 8.23, the internet surfing community is still finding it hard to digest the judge’s decision.
It is a little surprising to see the surfing fans react so strongly to a high-scoring single move when they have been looking forward to see the high-risk manoeuvres get higher scores as compared to the traditional tricks that are almost a norm in surfing
contests. In order to encourage the surfers to raise innovation to a higher level, the surfers should be appreciated for daring to go for riskier manoeuvres instead of complaining about the trick getting a high score.
The views expressed by the writer are his own and do not reflect the editorial policy of
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