The surfing bullies undermining the positives of mid-year rotation and One World Ranking system
For nearly two years, the surfing elite have been making a fuss over the mid-year cut-off that was introduced by the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) in 2010. Despite making an immense effort to view the entire issue from their perspective, the
stand against the mid-season rotation fails to look anything but selfish and ridiculous.
The intended motivation for the inception of mid-year rotation was to raise the degree of intensity in surfing competitions around the calendar, instead of restricting the spotlight to the 11 stops of World Tour. While the impact of the World Tour events
is undeniable, it does not make sense to completely ignore the rest of the competitions with a huge field of extremely talented surfers.
The mid-year rotation keeps all the surfers involved, giving them a motivation to push themselves harder in order to grab the opportunity to move into the World Tour. The system is also intended to make the competition even more gripping in World Tour events
by placing the surfers under the pressure of getting dropped from the elite tour if they fail to deliver.
The World Tour is expected to deliver non-stop thrilling action as the heavy-weights of surfing take each other on for the biggest honour in the sport, the ASP World Title. With 34 surfers in contention for the World Title, it is unrealistic to assume that
all 34 of them would be able to make a solid impact just because they managed to qualify for the tour. It is possible for a few of the surfers to run out of gas during the tour, making them easy pickings for the other surfers and making the general outlook
of every stop pretty much the same.
How can one blame the ASP for wanting to keep the World Tour interesting by ensuring that it consists of in-form surfers?
Many of the elite tour surfers are protesting against the One World Ranking system, something that puts the World Tour surfers on the same ranking table as other surfers. The argument that is being raised is that the level of competition and calibre of surfers
in World Title series is much higher than that in Prime and Star events. This makes the comparison between the two classes of surfers unfair.
While there may be some validity to the argument, one cannot rule out the fact that the option to compete in the Prime and Star events is also available for the World Tour surfers. It may be below their standards to take on the relatively unknown surfers,
but that is entirely their own decision. If their sponsor has an issue with this, then it is not the ASP’s problem.
The intention for the One World Ranking system was, in fact, introduced to motivate the World Tour surfers to take more interest in events besides that world in World Tour schedule. This not only served to raise the profile of the other events, but also
attracted the attention of more audience.
The performance of a previous year is not an appropriate measure of a surfer’s right to compete in the entire World Tour. While it does make a lot of sense to start of the tour with the top 34 from the previous year, holding on to surfers who are proving
to be nothing more than excess baggage eludes common sense.
The world tour surfers may have been able to convince the ASP for deactivating mid-year rotation for 2012 ASP World Tour, but one can only hope that the governing body would cease to give in to pressure and continue to do what is best for the sport. The
world would love to see surfers like Brazil’s Gabriel Medina get into the World Tour and add a little bit of unpredictability to it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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