Should kneeboard comps be judged this way?

[Steeno]

VARIETY AND FLOW TO EARN THE QUIKSILVER PRO POINTS

Surfers will have a lot more room to manoeuvre on this year’s Foster’s Men’s World Tour and ASP Women’s World Championship Tour with a new judging criteria to be showcased in the perfect point waves of Australia’s Gold Coast. With the unveiling of the new judging assessments at next week’s Quiksilver Pro presented by Boost Mobile and the Roxy Pro presented by Boost Mobile, the world’s best surfers will be rewarded for being even more explosive and creative than ever before.

Former six-times world champion Kelly Slater (USA) had season-long discussions with Head Judge Perry Hatchett last year, and pointed out that a lot of the manoeuvres that some of the WCT surfers have in their repertoires are being done by an increasing cross-section of surfers at the beach these days. The new criteria draws the entire Top 45 lineup to risk more to gain more.

“It sounds really good” said reigning and three-times world champion Andy Irons, who arrived on the Gold Coast on Wednesday night. The Hawaiian is charged to capture his fourth title and go one better on his runner-up finish to Australia’s Michael Lowe in last year’s Quiksilver Pro.

“We haven’t had a change in the judging criteria for five years, and that was the first modification in many years, but the way that the guys have been pushing performance standards over and over, it was time for a review to keep up with those advancements” declared ASP Head Judge Perry Hatchett.

“I’m looking forward to seeing everyone cutting loose with big moves, instead of milking it to the beach’” continued Irons. “Every year I love coming to the Gold Coast for the Quiksilver Pro. It’s one of my favourite places and favourite events. This is such a good place! What better place to bring in a new judging system. The waves at Snapper are great.”

Reading from the 2005 edition of the ASP rulebook, the judges will draw their assessment of surfers’ rides from the following definition:

"A surfer must perform radical controlled manoeuvres in the critical section of a wave with Speed, Power and Flow to maximize scoring potential. Innovative / Progressive surfing as well as Variety of Repertoire (manoeuvres), will be taken into consideration when rewarding points for waves ridden. The surfer who executes this criteria with the maximum Degree of Difficulty and Commitment on the waves shall be rewarded with the higher scores."

The relevant changes for 2005 are the placement of the word ‘Flow’, which replaces the former inclusion of ‘Style’, and the addition of the evaluation of ‘Variety of Repertoire’.

It became obvious over recent years that people were misinterpreting the word ‘Style’.

Some individual competitors would be losing to certain surfers and the first thing they would exclaim in protest to the Head Judge over their result was “I’ve beaten this guy before he leaves the beach because his style is so horrible…the way he approaches a wave and stands.”

”My first comeback was that that was not the way ‘style’ was interpreted by the judges,” said Perry Hatchett. “

“The judges were defining style as how the surfer reads the wave, utilises sections, and the whole wave overall” continued Perry, adding that whenever he discussed the matter with Kelly Slater, the six-time world champ always used the word ‘flow’, as in being synchronised with the wave.

A prime case in consideration of the former misinterpretation of the word ‘style’ is Brazilian Peterson Rosa who finished 10th in the Foster’s Men’s Tour ratings for 2004.

Rosa is restricted in his style after snapping the ligaments in his hamstring muscle as a grommet. The liability of his injury is being unable to excessively bend his front leg, and yet the brazen natural footer has incredible flow, well known for linking sections with radical floaters, and regularly taking on critical sections with complete commitment.

“There are so many different styles amongst the Top 45 surfers. Some have very beautiful styles, while others are not that beautiful but very radical doing lots of sick turns. It is definitely better to be judging flow,” said Rosa, who was the first foreigner to arrive on the Gold Coast for this year’s Quiksilver Pro.

The inclusion of variance in repertoire into the judging criteria will be regarded as a solid step forward, especially by the top ranked surfers, who are well accomplished and applauded in all departments.

“I don’t think it will change a lot with the judging of the top guys,” said Mick Fanning (Australia). “The Top 16 are doing that stuff anyway – no two turns are the same. I think it might be a little different for the guys who come through the WQS doing the same turn to get through heats. It should improve things though and generally make it more exciting.”

There are however a challenging mix of young rookies coming into this year’s Top 45 who will be out to take on the established rulers next week. Young bloods like Chris Ward (USA), Fred Patacchia (Hawaii), Bede Durbidge (Australia), Kirk Flintoff (Australia) and Travis Logie (South Africa) are anything but predictable performers. Formulated surfing and trusted moves will not be enough in 2005.

“Everyone can do big turns these days, but the new criteria means that three different big turns are going to get the big scores,” said Jake Paterson.

“Some surfers have been remaining on safe ground while other guys like Slater, Andy Irons, Occy, Taj Burrow, Joel Parkinson and even Sunny Garcia use a full variety of manoeuvres in their repertoire” observed Perry Hatchett.

Taking Joel Parkinson (Australia) and Taj Burrow (Australia) as examples, neither has yet won a world title and yet they do everything possible to any wave the ocean deals them. From re-entries and full roundhouse cutbacks, to floaters, tube riding and through to aerial type manoeuvres, they do it all – but they’ve had a hard time getting a grasp of what they should be doing.

Taj Burrow won the second last WCT event of last season in Brazil blowing everyone away with a repertoire of moves on almost every wave that were as diverse as they were critical. The West Australian’s performance was a talking point on tour for weeks. Taj and Joel were raised looking up to Kelly Slater’s seemingly boundless repertoire, and the top shelf he established in the 90’s is becoming both more crowded and limitless.

“The boys are being encouraged to mix it up more. It’ll be good to watch and get rid of those heats where you see surfers tempted to use the same reliable turns to get through,” said Darren O’Rafferty (Australia).

“There’s a lot of guys who do a lot of back-foot half manoeuvres or monotonous turns,” continued Perry Hatchett. “With the new criteria, the degree of commitment and difficulty put into their variety is the part that is going to going to earn them their major scoring.”

“We’re looking to break away from easy manoeuvres and put the risk factor up there. We need to get away from the safe side of surfing and see the levels that we see in exciting free-surfing sessions brought into the WCT arena. It has to be more explosive to the public.”

With flow, variety of repertoire, commitment, speed and power, as well as radical application all now sections of the judging criteria, the ASP tours will be establishing more definitive grounds for both assessment and entertainment this year. The 2005 Quiksilver Pro is destined to bust all frontiers.

[john -]

sounds good!

im reminded of when id play footy as a kid - if i had my socks up and the jumper tucked in, the old man would think id played a great game - even if the only kick i got landed in the other teams hands

but my usual socks down and jumper out approach - even though id kicked four goals and taken ten marks from the wing, earnt no praise

on the other hand perhaps this has, to some degree, already been adopted by some judges given that Baden - whose style some dont find pure - has won so much recently


on viewing "now and then" some of those younger guys might also feel that they would be in with a chance as well - the Simpsons - maybe their time is comming



maybe i have no idea what im saying




dorje

[uriah]

Unfortunately, surfers like Rob Machado get robbed, (no pun intended). Or look at 4? time longboard champ Rusty Keaulana, somehow beating Joel Tudor consistently year after year? He may bust out some crazy s*&%t in some heavy waves, but he looks like a monkey on crack doing it. The whole thing goes back to Fain and Dora at Malibu. No sense in trying to change what keeps happening over and over, generation after generation. People want to see the animals at the circus jump through their hoops. And you gotta give the people what they want, otherwise the billion dollar machine can't keep rolling.

[Ler]

I voted Yes. I wonder though, in footboarding I see people trying new moves. To be perfectly honest in kneeboarding, here in the U.S. I don't see any kneeriding going on that the rules of judging should be changed. Sure there are people riding really really good, but nothing in my eyes to change the rule book. We should look forward to change, when it's nessacery. Just my two cents.

Ler

[Jack Beresford]

Ler - I think we should be looking at judging criteria and alternate format events to push performance. A big difference for the stand-ups is that they're now holding most of their pro comps at perfect spots like Tavarua, J-bay, North Shore, etc. - while we're slogging it out at Pleasure Point, OB pier and O-side.

How about a Kneeboard comp at a perfect barreling reef break or point?

Jack

[Jon Manss]

I can see it now Jack. Low tide, summer swell and the Knee crew takes over Stockton for three days. Everry one goes home with raging reviews and Paul, Scott,Jon,Dan and John end up with black eyes and promises that we will never do that again, for the rest of the year.

[albert]

ler,

I think that by changing (or evolving) the criteria, it will push the sport in its own little way.


I like this... question is, when is the Aussie Circuit going to adopt this criteria??? Scoop????

[surfhorn]

After viewing the shots of Simon in Hawaii this year, lets just give up: he wins!

But, if you want to advance KBing comps, I have two little words that would fix everything: Puerto Escondido.

[Ler]

Yeah Puerto would be good. It would be a pull in & die event. Which is good for someone like me, but the new system would make harder for someone like me in performance surf. I think there is only a small handful of high performance kneelo's pushing air moves or new moves. It all washes out in the end, the best usally are there in the final anyway it is judged.

[Dunc]

A yes vote from me. Kneeriding became successful because it was inovative and different. It had its own high performance moves that were light years a head of stand up surfing. Unfortunately they bought a faster spaceship with all their money caught up and then overtook us. With increased kneeboard coverage and opportunities for us to see ourselves and others surfing now is the time to get creative. The best kneelos are the ones who use the benefits of kneeriding to bust out moves or get in positions that most stand ups can't. Super deep, high G turns, rollos and flips. The way we ride puts is in a position to take the eratic explosiveness of bodyboarding and combine it with a flowing style. Guys like the Simpsons are the ones already doing this and better judging criteria wil only encourage more to follow suit.

[albert]

Guys like the Simpsons are the ones already doing this and better judging criteria wil only encourage more to follow suit.

I believe a point that has to be brought up regarding this topic is that people have been pulling moves like these for years... The simpsons werent the first ones to regularly pull airs and the like, they learned them from other people.

The purpose of advancement or evolution of the criteria is to give credit to people that surf really good, whereas they have been 'left behind' in the past and regularly beaten by people who adhere to the criteria at the time.

[Ler]

So Jack and Simon, can win every contest even easier

[Steeno]

there are lotsa of kneelo surfers who can surf to this criteria in australia, and do it well.

Like...should a standard 3 reo's score higher than a single reo and a busting air....

Now your thinking Andrew...