2011 Surfski World Series rankings…a 2nd look
Posted by bckcrainbow on December 6, 2011
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.
Jan Malherbe said
You will find that a few of these guys did 4 events, not 3, and yes they have a greater ability to travel to attend events of their choice. I think the rankings are likely legitimate, especially if you look at consistency of a paddler such as Dawid Mocke. Ranking paddlers for seasonal results per geographic area might provide a better regional idea of talent globally, and picking/inviting select paddlers to a single world championship out of such a pool will then allow the “world champion” to win the world championship!
bckcrainbow said
Yup, Dawid is the top gun any way you slice it.
I see the 2012 series will be comprised of about 16 events and points from 8 events will count toward the championship. I wonder if a mid pack racer with deep pockets could attend 8 events and end up accumulating more points than the top racers who may only be able to afford the time/expense of travelling to attend 5 of the events.
I understand their motivation to grow the sport by getting as many events as possible involved in the world series…but until enough of the top racers can consistently participate in enough of the events, they may have to reduce the number of events for which points count…and perhaps have 1 key race that would count as a tie-breaker, so that we fans of the sport can see the big guns going head to head…that would be cool!