WSL admits misjudgment in Challenger Series

The first stage of the 2024 season of the Challenger Series, an access division of the World Surf League (WSL), is being played on the Gold Coast, Australia. In the third heat of the men’s round of 32, Nat Young was eliminated in last place against three other athletes. What caught the most attention on the day, however, was a serious error by the judges. The league has even been involved in many judging controversies on the Championship Tour, considered the first division of professional surfing, but has not even shown up to explain its decisions.

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This time, Nat Young surfed a wave with about a minute left in the heat. At that time, he was in second place, but the WSL had not released all of the athletes’ scores. The American received applause from the public on the sand after completing his maneuvers. The 4.03 score caused shock for both the surfer and those watching the event. More than that, several professional athletes commented on the case in a post by Young on social media.

Among them, Yago Dora and Miguel Pupo contested the WSL’s judgment. In addition to the Brazilian duo, Italian Leonardo Fioravanti, Australians Adrian Buchan and Jack Freestone and American world champion CJ Hobgood gave their opinions on the case. Finally, Gabriel Medina, who is constantly being undermined by the surfing organization, commented: “I feel (very) sorry for you, Nat.”

It was only after the negative repercussion that the WSL published a clarification note.

– The Head Judge and Nat (Young) met for a drum review and watched all of Nat, Mikey and Charly’s waves.

It was recognized and admitted that Nat’s 4.03 was, in fact, undervalued and the wave should have been scored in the 5 or 6 point range.

Even if it wasn’t the 7.21 that Nat needed to advance to a better position, we still wanted to acknowledge the error,”
the league wrote on social media. – Declared the league.

The question that remains in the surfing world is why the WSL hid from the controversies involving Medina’s name. The three-time world champion demanded explanations for his batteries at the beginning of 2024, but was resoundingly ignored by the league. Just like in this case with Young, surfers criticized the federation because of the mistakes that harmed Gabriel, but even that was not enough for a public explanation from the league.

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In this sense, the WSL itself sets precedents for a possible accusation of favoritism towards some nations, which, if proven, would become extremely problematic. To deal with criticism, the league should pay more attention to what fans are saying, as the inability to correctly judge waves is starting to irritate surfing competitors as well.