The ASL World Tour: You be the judge [Rio Re-Run]

from Australia Surfing Life

Surfing Life was staggered to see the sheer volume of banter and debate that followed the Owen Wright and Adriano de Souza quarterfinal at last week’s Billabong Rio Pro. Online chatter hit new levels, seemingly the entire surf community felt compelled to volunteer an opinion, from the informed to the libellous, from unfortunately nationalistic to the engaged and enthusiastic.

The uproar proved how intensely passionate surfers are about the upper level of their sport, and demanded an ASP response. Which they duly gave, releasing a bizarre retrospective, in which “the ASP International Judging Panel were gracious enough to look back and provide their expert perspective on the heat.” The statement raised as many questions as it answered, and the simultaneous timing of its release on aspworldtour.com alongside another post asking whether we all want to return to G-Land saw the public calling the ASP out for trying to divert attention from the bigger issue.

It’s all behind us now, but with ASL’s in-house filmer Nick Pollet keen to hit the the edit suite we thought we’d get him to pull together highlight clips of the best waves of four standout surfers from the Rio event, complete with their scores. This is not intended to undermine the ASP and their judges at all, if anything it should demonstrate how much the panel has to, and do, adjust their scale on heat-by-heat basis, depending on conditions.

But, we’d love your feedback. If this was an expression session, who would you give the nod to? What do you think the judges should be rewarding, and what would you like to see them marking down? Compare the clips and let us know your thoughts.


Owen Wright


Adriano de Souza


Josh Kerr


Taj Burrow