The return of the World Surf League is nearly upon us, and as virtually every promotional campaign of virtually every sports league will tell you at the beginning of the season, it’s set to be a year like no other. This time, however, it’s safe to say that it’s true.
In fact, already the season has been an unusual one purely by virtue of the fact that the first event was held way back in December in Hawaii. Regular followers of the WSL will know that typically, that is a slot reserved for the culminating event of the season, but given there was no season to culminate in 2020, it kicked things off instead.
Unsurprisingly, the WSL didn’t plan for Hawaii to host a season-opening event in December only to have a four-month long hiatus before the next event. Initially, another tournament in Hawaii – the Sunset Open – was scheduled for late January, before the league was due to head across to California for the Santa Cruz Pro. Neither of these events have been on the Championship Tour in recent years, and it turns out nor are they this year, because following the tournaments at Pipe both were cancelled courtesy of a little virus you might have heard of.
Upon cancelling the events, WSL stated that they intended to restart the season with the traditional Easter weekend Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach. That has since changed too. Logistical issues with the Victorian government meant that event had to be cancelled for the first time since 1961 (don’t worry, it’ll be back next year), with the league instead set to head to Newcastle for the Rip Curl Newcastle Cup.
An event at Snapper Rocks would normally be squeezed in there somewhere too but again, logistical issues made it too difficult to jump the tour over the border into Queensland, so instead they’ll hit Sydney’s northern beaches for the Rip Curl Narrabeen Classic after Newcastle.
The Margaret River Pro in Western Australia is thus the only regular tournament still set to run in Australia this year. Clearly, the WSL figured that once they forced their way into WA they might as well stay there a while, because they added an event at Rottnest Island immediately after Margaret River, which will take place in mid-May. That makes for an extended four-event Australian leg of the tour over less than two months. Sounds pretty tight, but after one event in over a year I’m sure nobody is complaining.
To an extent, normality will be restored thereafter. Following two busy months and three new event locations in Australia, the best surfers in the world will head to Brazil for the Oi Rio Pro in mid-June, before immediately jetting off to South Africa for the Corona Open J Bay, one of the most anticipated events on the schedule.
A much-needed month and a half off will follow, after which the Surf Ranch Pro at Kelly Slater’s wave pool – seemingly now a regular stop on the tour – will get us going again. A week after that contest ends, the final normal event on the abridged version of the WSL Championship Tour takes place in the form of the Outerknown Tahiti Pro at Teahupo’o.
After more than 12 months with just one competition, both the men and women Championship Tours will include eight in a matter of just four months. Three of these are makeshift tournaments to fill the hole left by Bells and Snapper in the schedule, while there are also a couple of other notable absentees.
For the first time since 2001, no events will take place in Europe on the Championship Tour. In recent years the schedule has consistently headed to Hossegor in the south-west of France around September, before jumping across to Supertubos in Peniche, Portugal. Both are great events and can dish up some incredible waves, but evidently the logistical issues associated with transporting an entire tour’s worth of competitors and support staff around Europe were too great.
Instead, as we mentioned in a previous article, in September the tour will conclude at Trestles, California, where the Hurley Pro was held up until 2017. Instead of a regular season-ending contest, however, it will be invite-only, with only the top five men and top five women on the leaderboard after the prior nine rounds of competition earning a spot at the event. The two winners will be crowned world champion, regardless of whether they finished first or fifth over the course of the rest of the season. It’s a drastic shift from how things have typically been done and has been met with something of a tepid response by fans, but in what will already be one of the more different seasons in league history, perhaps the WSL thought it apt to finish on an equally unique note. They will, however, be sticking with this format for at least the next couple of years after they agreed to a three-year partnership with Rip Curl for naming rights to the event.
Of course, all of these events are subject to confirmation and if we’ve learnt anything from the past year, it’s that until a sporting event has literally already begun, any schedule is a tentative one. Clearly, the hope is that throughout the year, the world begins to extract itself from the grips of COVID, but nonetheless, the task of moving such a high volume of people to five different countries across four different continents in the span of just three months is a monumental one. The significant changes to the schedule, however, both in terms of which tournaments will be held and in what order, exist to minimise these logistical difficulties as much as possible. And while the likes of Bells Beach and Supertubos will be sorely missed, it’ll be mighty good to have pro surfing back.
