Lankan’s biggest surfing event ever scheduled for June
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With the growing success of the Surfing Federation of Sri Lanka (SFSL), it will host the World’s most accomplished Surfers in a World Qualifying Series (WQS) competition this June at Arugam Bay.
The SFSL is a member of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka and will play a big part in the proceedings.
Altogether, 145 competitors and 105 officials from 22 countries such as United States, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, France, Japan and Indonesia, to name a few. are billed to participate, with the projected income for Sri Lanka set at US$ 450,000.
The World Surf League (WSL) is the home of professional Surfing, and the WQS events are given Star Ratings with this particular event made a 6 Star Event, the highest rating in this series, up with the Hawaiian events and attracting the very best of professional Surfers. In the exciting world of professional Surfing no one is safe on the “tour” and attendance and good results at these events, held worldwide, are vital in keeping the dreams alive of a possible world title one day.
The WQS is the only possible route into the final Championship Tour that decides a world champion from 32 Surfers, but those in the lower rankings of the Championship Tour have to compete in the WQS events to stay on that tour, so expect to see some of the biggest names in Surfing gracing our waves.
The global media presence at the WSL events is massive with an expected 120 million online viewers over an event window. This media exposure would be a huge boost to, not only Arugam Bay and Eastern Sri Lanka, but to the entire Sri Lankan tourism sector. Sri Lanka would be up in the rankings of Hawaii, California and Australia who of course are major venues for WSL events.
WSL events are expect to bring around US$ 450,000 of direct revenue to the area where the competitions are held, but it’s the aftermath of this exposure online that has made a huge and positive impact for many countries that have hosted these events.
So how do they find a winner? Surfers are judged by a panel of 5 professional judges who travel the tour and the Surfer will be judged according to a set criteria, with each wave judged out of a possible maximum 10 in a 20-30 minute period. Of course, they are surfing against their rivals but more than that, they are trying to catch the judges eyes with a solid performance. Its exciting stuff and quite easy to understand. Even the layman can often give a solid opinion on a spectacular surfing display. Surfers compete against one another in groups of 4 until the final exciting rounds where its man-on-man competition until the winner is crowned. They receive considerable prize money too for their efforts.