Surfski.info recently published the results of the 2011 Surfski World Series. South Africa’s Dawid Mocke repeated as champion. Hopefully the committee in charge of establishing the Surfski World Series format will look at modifications for 2012…seems flawed in its present state if you ask me. My far from thorough review of the standings indicates only 2 racers did 5 races to count maximum points and 1 racer did 4 events. Curiously these 3 paddlers made up the top 3 spots in the rankings. Seems the majority of the top racers were able to afford the time/expense to participate in only 3 of the 6 available world series events. It seems at this point surfski racing hasn’t quite matured to the level that would make the current world series format as meaningful as it is meant to be. It is interesting to look at the results of the rankings by counting the racers top results from 3 of the events.
1) 1498 Dawid Mocke
2) 1491 Matthew Bouman
3) 1489 Bruce Taylor
4) 1487 Tom Schilperoodt
5) 1483 Jasper Mocke
6) 1477 Sean Rice
7) 1465 Barry Lewin
8) 1464 Dean Gardiner
9) 1446 Mark Anderson & Jeremy Cotter (tie)
Dawid Mocke still comes out on top and the top 10 paddlers are all within 52 points of each other. If the powers that be want to ensure the Surfski World Series rankings are meaningful, then care has to be taken to ensure the format ensures the paddlers with the top results are being best represented in the rankings. There needs to be balance between growing the international level and exposure of the sport by motivating the top racers to travel the world to more of the key high profile events while ensuring the integrity of the rankings is not compromised by artificially inflating the rankings of paddlers who are better able to find ways to travel to the international events.
