Demand the World Surf League "WSL" to show transparency & consistency in their judging criteria!
- by: Noa Aikau
- recipient: World Surf League, Kierren Perrow, Richie Porta, WSL Sponsors
We all love surfing. Some us look at surfing as a lifestyle others as a competitive sports. But regardless of what your stance on that issue is, we all enjoy watching some of the best surfers taking on some of the best waves around the world.
Recently the WSL judging system or "criteria" has been put under serious scrutiny do to the lack of consistency in judging and lack of transparency, heat arrangements, long delays in the delivery of some crucial score results and favoritism or bias judging. These corruption problems have been part of the organization for decades when it was still called the "ASP". Surf historians, retired judges, sports analysts and tour athletes have all come in defense of surfing and have pointed out the organizations lack of transparency in their judging criteria. Since the Association of Pro Surfers "ASP", auto-transission themselves by changing their name to World Surf League "WSL" there has been an increase in sponsorship but also an outrageous amount of questionable and doubtful critical calls from the judges.
In most international sports competition, the judging is done by an international panel of judges and evenly distributed to each region represented. The judges are visible and each individual score is displayed together with the total. Judges must deliver their scoring in a timely manner. Judges do not know the score or percentage needed for an athlete to win or pass to a next round.
Please Sign this petition, to ask the "World Surf League" to:
1. Make the judges panel internationally even.
Ex. 1 Australian, 1 American, 1 Brazilian, 1 South African, 1 Pacific Islander, 1 European
2. Disclose the name of the Judges and where they are from before every transmission.
3. Have the Judges deliver the score within 15-20 seconds from the finish of the ride. Unless a replay is required.
4. Judges don't get to know other judges scores, nor the score result needed for a surfer to get the lead on a heat or pass to next round.
5. End the corruption.
There are millions of youngster around the world that dream of making a good living as a professional surfer. But seeing the direction that the WSL chooses to be on and the constant bias judging calls, will make them think is not about their talent in this sport, but who do you know and where you from that will determined your success as a professional competitive surfer.
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