Jai Ashok Mahtani- World Surf League

World Surf League Presented by, Jai Ashok Mahtani

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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.

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The headquarters of the WSL is in Santa Monica, California, and is the world’s largest international surfing association.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

These scores are divided into increments of 10 and the player’s performance is then evaluated accordingly.

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.

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A QS 4,000 – QS 6,000 (intermediate level competition) Qualifying Series event requires seven judges with five of those judges on each heat.

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A QS 5,000 – QS 10,000 (top-level competition) Qualifying Series events there are only 3 judges allowed from any one region.

In case of a tie-breaker or errors, all events appoint an approved WSL judge to solve problems regarding any event that may change the course of the competition and its result.

Criteria Although the criterion for judging a surfer depends on the type of wave, event, and other constantly changing factors, it can be loosely deďŹ ned into these 5 sections: 1.

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Commitment and degree of diďŹƒculty Innovative and progressive maneuvers Combination of major maneuvers Variety of maneuvers Speed, power, and ow

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 ●

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.

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Intersecting a surfer who has a Right Of Way leads to the call of interference and subsequent penalties.

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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.

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: â—?

Three or more waves are being considered- one wave score is dropped.

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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 disqualiďŹ ed from the competition and asked to leave the event area.