ASP Top 34 Endure Record Nine Calls Before Lay Day Decided at Billabong Pro Jeffreys Bay

Comments

1. Surffan says:

   July 22, 2011 at 9:13 pm

   Not to be a stick-in-the-mud but this is why the general public doesn’t take surfing seriously. When its time for Wimbledon they schedule a time and day and they actually start at that time therefore fans can know when it will be on and they can tune in. You can’t reasonably expect people to log in to this website for ten straight days only to find nothing has happened or to check back every hour to see if anything happened. You wouldn’t tune in to a Lakers game only to have Kobe decide the conditions in the arena aren’t quite right and therefore officials will recommence in an hour . . .
   It also seems that the world title events never seem to actually have a swell at the same time as the event, all these locations are known for good waves but i can’t remember the last event that actually had “good” surf. The schedule is “supposed” to be based off of what locations should most likely have swell during particular times of the year but it really seems like its based more off of tradition. Traditionally the tour opens in Australia in January . . . why? Last time there was nice surf at a Bells event was maybe 1997? Teahupoo is an amazing wave, although it never has been for a title event though. Brazil is consistently crap, how can you call that wave “world-class”? Europe generally disappoints. End all of those, yeah those waves are good (when they have ideal conditions) but millions of beaches have good waves when particular conditions arise. ASP is planning the tour thinking “what are the best waves in the world assuming conditions are perfect everywhere on earth all the time”, but conditions are almost never perfect anywhere and never two places at once. Why don’t they plan an event schedule based off of where the waves will actually be good, not just where they want them to be good. Any surfer will tell you its much better to surf a decent break with a good swell than a world-class break with no swell. So you can drag these guys to so-called “world class” locations but the surfing isn’t world class without the waves. Plus, waves and beaches change. Beaches that were good 20 years ago can get crappy due to bottom changes and other factors. If an event fails it needs to be discontinued. Subsidize the world title tour down to a regional mobile. Instead of J-bay have the South African Mobile, or the European mobile. Generally if you want to go surfing on the best waves where you live that requires traveling to several spots to zero in on where the best waves are at that particular moment. Otherwise why can’t they build a world-class wavepool with a 6-foot two-way peak? That would be a real contest of surfing ability instead of a boring wave catching contest. Also might i add the new format is not an improvement. The worst part of the old format was the 3 man heats, now there are two rounds of 3 man heats, its completely pointless except that it is the most logical way of reducing 12 people down to 8 . . . a better more LOGICAL format would be no wild cards, 32 surfers man-on-man from start to finish. Even in man on man heats there isn’t usually enough set waves to divide between the two surfers, with the 3 man heats there are definitely never enough waves to go around. So even if the point of the 3 man heat is to allow fans to see more surfing . . . there aren’t enough waves to go around and so the fans actually get to watch less surfing. Furthermore, if the ASP is so interested in the fans getting to see as much surfing as possible why don’t they do more in the way of requiring the surfers (who are not injured) to surf all the events in the schedule? Kobe Bryant can’t just decide to not show up to a Lakers game like Kelly Slater does. The NBA understands that fans are there to see Kobe play and if he isn’t there it disappoints fans who lose interest and it hurts the league. Its also illogical to hand Slater’s seed to anybody other than the next seed after Cory Lopez, but that is what happened. I don’t care if Slater is here or not since i think he is overrated, but if he is taking up a spot on the tour he needs to show up to surf or be replaced. Simply tossing in Shaun Joubert (no disrespect to him) because he is available is not pitting the worlds best surfers against each other, that is one of the worlds best against another lesser surfer who by virtue of his ranking is not one of the worlds best. Plus, doesn’t that violate the ASP rule of 2 wild cards per event? After the 2 wild cards it should be all replacement seeds only. It robbed somebody the chance of getting into the top 32 in September. The new format has made it easier for surfers to stay in the top 32 without having to actually defeat any surfers ranked lower. With the WCT/WQS format if a surfer was getting all 33rds on the WCT he would have to actually defeat the WQS competitors in WQS events and maintain a WQS top 16 rating to stay on the WCT. Now for example, you have Taylor Knox who has only made one heat all year apparently still going to requalify without actually being able to defeat those surfers ranked immediately below him, how is that representative of the surfers overall skill? If Knox was required to compete in the STAR events to hold his position he would likely not be able to, it stands to reason that the overwhelmingly superior points awarded from TITLE events are enabling lesser surfers to maintain higher rankings by virtue of the fact that they were absorbed into the new world title race from the WCT and are reaping the benefits of an unbalanced semi two-tier system. Its two-tier for everybody except the world title contenders for whom its one-tier. At the very least, last place in a world-title event should be worth zero points. That way surfers can’t earn points for losing.
2. Timmy says:

   July 22, 2011 at 1:56 pm

   Slater is looking smarter and smarter on this one…