O’Neill Cold Water Classic Santa Cruz returning to ASP World Tour in 2012
The world’s elite Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 34 will be taking a trip to Northern California next November to continue their campaign for the coveted ASP World Title at the latest addition to the 2012 ASP World Tour, the O’Neill Cold Water
Classic Santa Cruz.
The announcement regarding the event’s promotion to a World Title event was made by the ASP and O’Neill on Thursday, December 22.
“We're very happy to confirm the O'Neill Cold Water Classic Santa Cruz as an ASP World Title event in 2012,” said the ASP World Tour manager Renato Hickel. “Santa Cruz offers a variety of world-class waves for our surfers to perform on, and we're hopeful
that conditions will deliver for the world's best to do battle in.”
The event will be the 10th of 11th stops on the 2012 ASP World Tour and may possibly be the occasion where the fate of the World Title gets decided.
“With a World Tour event in 2012 and the possibility of the World Champion being crowned, we expect to see an exciting chapter in surfing history written right in our front yard,” said the president and CEO of O’Neill Wetsuits, Pat O'Neill.
It would be the 60th anniversary of O’Neill Cold Water Classic, which has been enjoying the status of an ASP event for the last three decades. The Santa Cruz event had been part of the ASP World Tour previously, before getting downgraded to an
ASP Star and ASP Prime event. However, it continued to deliver a heavy dose of thrilling action and bringing some of the world’s most promising talent under spotlight.
Some of the renowned surfers who rose to glory at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic include Santa Barbara’s Tom Curren, 2006 ASP World Tour Rookie of the Year Bobby Martinez, Californian young prodigy Nat Young, Australia’s Joel Parkinson and Matt Wilkinson,
South Africa’s Jordy Smith and Brazil’s Miguel Pupo.
The announcement of O’Neill Cold Water Classic’s promotion to an ASP World Tour came just a week after ASP announced the cancellation of Quiksilver Pro New York from the 2012 season, with Quiksilver citing financial constraints and complications arising
from Hurricane Irene that hit the East Coast in August earlier this year as the reason for pulling the plug on the event.
The elite ASP 34 will be battling it out for top honours during their campaign for the ASP World Title at the O’Neill Cold Water Classic Santa Cruz from November 2-12, 2012.
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