surfer-21

If you like surfing you can’t help but love following the ASP World Tour. But what is it?

Well the ASP is the Association of Surfing Professionals. It is the foremost governing body in professional surfing.It governs the ASP World Tour, the ASP World Qualifying Series (WQS), the ASP World Longboard Tour (WLT), the ASP Pro Junior Series, the World Masters Championship, and Specialty Events. It has 7 world regions: Africa, Japan, Australasia, Europe, Hawaii, North America, and South America. It was formed around 1976 as various surfing competitions around the world attracted the best surfers all joined together.

How does it work? The top 45 male and top 17 female surfers in the world compete together, after they have qualified through the lower tier of competetions; the World Qualifying Series (WQS). There are around 45 WQS events per season. The events are rated on a star system with ratings from 1 to 6 stars depending on the amount of prize money offered and how highly rated the event is. The higher the star rating of the event the more points are awarded to the highest placed surfers in that event. At the end of the season the highest 9 scores of each surfer are added together to give the final placings. At many of the WQS events there are some pre qualifying rounds for some surfers to get into the main event, but if there are too many entries top seeds are allocated the places.

Each year the last 16 people on the ASP world tour list would drop off, sometimes they can re-qualify by gaining enough points competing on the WQS series to qualify and keep a place on the main ASP tour. The top 15 rated Men’s surfers and top 6 rated Women’s surfers on the ASP World Qualifying Series are awarded seeds into the following year’s ASP World Tour. There are also ‘wildcards’, sometimes awarded to one or two ASP World Tour surfers who could not acquire enough points to requalify through competition during the privious season, or sometimes to a top surfer that has taken a year out.

Up to 13 Events are held at the top surfing destintations around the world, at the best time for good quality swell (a bit like our surf holidays!). Surfers compete for points in heats, men and women compete seperately. Judges look for a combination of speed, radical manoeuvres and style. Each heat usualy has 2 surfers in the water together and lasts about 20 minutes this can be adjusted depending on conditions. To avoid surfers hassling each other in the line-up, they take turns to have ‘priority’ and surf.

The ASP says “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.”

Scores are given 1-10 with 10 being the best or ‘the perefct 10′.  Surfers’ scores are the total of their two highest-scored waves, with a maximum of 15 waves scored. There is a minimum prize fund of US$340,000 for men and US$90,000 for women. It’s great fun to watch the very best in the sport, so check out their website with live webcam and current world rankings.

We travel to Seignosse in South West France each September where the Quicksilver Pro France takes place. From the 23rd September surfers will compete and we will be able to watch them on our local beach breaks. See our France holiday page for more details on this tour.