THE World Surf League (WSL) announced major updates and changes to its tours and competitions, as well as the cancellation of the 2020 Championship Tour (CT) season due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“After careful consideration and extensive discussions with key stakeholders, we have made the decision to cancel the 2020 Championship Tour and Qualifying Series seasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” said WSL CEO Erik Logan in a video released on WSL channels at the weekend. “While we firmly believe that surfing is among the sports best suited for competition to be held safely during the age of unresolved Covid, we have huge respect for the ongoing concerns of many in our community as the world works to resolve this.”
The 2021 tour will start in November 2020 in Maui, Hawaii for the women and in December 2020 in Oahu, Hawaii for the men, subject to the approval of the State of Hawaii and local government agencies, as well as effective protocols that allow for safe international travel. The 2021 CT season will finish with ‘The WSL Finals,’ a new single-day World Title Event in September 2021.
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The 2021 WSL Championship Tour will see key format changes, with the men?s and women?s World Titles being decided in a single-day event, ‘The WSL Finals’. The top five women and top five men following the 10-event CT season will battle for their respective titles in a new surf-off format at one of the world’s best waves.
The schedule will be updated, and starting in 2021, the Challenger Series (CS) will run from August through to December. The QS will run through to the end of June 2021 and determine who has qualified for the Challenger Series. Points from QS events that were completed in 2020 will carry over into 2021.
More information on the status of WSL’s other tours – including the Challenger Series, Qualifying Series, Big Wave, Longboard, Pro Junior – will be made available on the event pages on WorldSurfLeague.com.
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