When I’ve seen the seeding for the wave discipline at Sylt, I couldn’t believe my eyes. In the great final of the season, the Sylt Super Grand Slam, the event that will decide the wave world champion, Josh Angulo and Kauli Seadi, numbers one and two in the race for the title, are in the same side of the draw, in case both advance trough their heats, they will met in the quarter finals. And that’s not all, because among the top seeds, so already in the second round, there are such names as Nik Baker and Jason Polakow, how is this possible? They’re not even doing the tour! Is it a joke? As I absolutely couldn’t believe it, I checked the PWA rulebook (part 3).According to the rulebook, from what I understood, the actual classification on the world tour is not considered, they look the position on last year’s ranking, the two best results over the last 12 months, and the previous year’s result at the actual event. Definitely this has to be a joke, they don’t consider the actual ranking*! Are you kidding???!!!!
Is it any other sport doing the same? Can you imagine numbers one and two in the tennis championship in the last grand slam of the season, deciding the world title, with the most important match up of the year, IN THE QUARTER FINALS??!!!
And by the way, according to this procedure, Nik Baker and Jason Polakow, are really in front of some of the guys doing all the tour? Hard to believe. But even if that is true, do we have a tour? Does count for anything if someone is doing the tour or not? Don't you think that should be important?
I think is time to start talking about it, because if we keep quiet, this is going to be over, they’re always complaining they don’t have money, no new sponsors on the tour, windsurfing is not having his best time… of course! The way they are doing everything, I would be surprised if anything gets better, and we are not talking about judges today, that is another subject.
(*by some the best two results in the last 12 months can be the actual ranking, but not necessary and for sure not for everyone)
7 comments:
The only discipline right now that has a proper tour is slalom. 3 events is nowhere near enough to determine who is the best sailor in the world in any discipline, especially if you think about the fact that it's the exact same 3 competetions that are hosted every season. How can you call that a world tour? The wave world tour became Cabo Verde/Pozo/Sylt, and nothing else. Of course those are incredible locations that definitely deserve a stop each, but it's not a world tour any more if they are the only ones. Maybe if money really is the problem, the PWA should change the format of the events, downsize the whole events and host more simple competitions in much more varied locations. The big problem with being so specific is that it is killing the growth of the community. When you host competitions you stimulate the local community and encourage the kids to pick up the sport, and for a sport like windsurfing that requires so much persistance to get anywhere, it's really important that the pros get a lot of exposure. The fact that the competitors have all been mixed up in the draw is pretty bad, but in the end it's almost irrelevant when you think how inaccurate the tour is with only 3 events.
Yes, it is a joke!
Once upon a time there was a real wave tour ... long time ago ... South Africa, Japan, Australia, Barbados, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Holand, Brazil, Hawaii ... PWA should look back 10 years ago and learn how to push windsurfing tour ... and I don't think there were more resources 10 years ago than today.
So go ahead and organize an event in your home spot.. so much talking for nothing...
Why there are PWA event sin France for example?, there are many french sailors in the PWA Tour... or how about Brazil, Venezuela, Bonaire?.. why there are no freestyle events on those places with so many kids coming to the Canaries?...
Stop complaining and start organizing, price money is pretty low compare with other sports, 30k for men and 15k for women...
for more information contact Rich Page, PWA tour manager: rich@pwaworldtour.com
Anonymous
and kauli (no 1) meets thomas t (no 3) in the 2nd round. r u kiddin me?
Baker and Polakow are big names and big names sell toothpaste.
Hi Anonimous (2), in fact we already talked to Rich Page and Jimmy Diaz, with the intention to organize something good in Pozo, but they have a contract with the company who has been doing it for the las few years, so anybody else can do a PWA event in Pozo for a while.
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