Never Watched Competitive Surfing? Here's What You Need to Know
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This summer will be the second Olympic games for surfing, as the sport made its Olympic debut at the last Games in Tokyo. This basically means that there's still time for you to feel like an expert while watching the water-based sport by learning how the competition is structured and scored.
Fortunately, you don't need to take any surf lessons to find answers — we've got you covered with a complete guide to how Olympic judges score these impressive stunts.
According to the Olympic Channel's scoring breakdown, a panel of five judges will score each wave that a surfer catches, on a scale of one to 10 with two decimal places. For each wave, the highest and lowest scores are discarded, and the remaining three are averaged. At the end of a heat, each surfer's two highest-scoring waves are combined for a total; a "perfect" heat would be 20 points, or two waves earning perfect 10s.
Four athletes can be surfing at any given time during a heat, although it hasn't yet been clarified publicly how the Olympic athletes will be seeded or grouped. The top two of each heat advance to the next, until the winner and other medalists have been determined.
How Is Surfing Scored?
In order to encompass all the different elements of the sport, a panel of judges scores surfers based on several different components, similar to sports like gymnastics or figure skating. According to the Olympic Channel, surfing is scored based on five criteria:
- Commitment and degree of difficulty, which is determined by the types of moves that athletes perform, how risky they are, and how well the athletes utilise the potential of each wave.
- Innovative and progressive manoeuvres, which reflects how creative and innovative the athlete's specific moves are.
- Variety of manoeuvres, which rewards athletes for mixing it up, rather than doing too much of the same thing.
- Combination of major manoeuvres, which reflects how well the "big" stunts are connected to one another.
- Speed, power, and flow, which is also pretty self explanatory. Judges look at how fast a surfer is moving and adapting to changing waves, how they're pushing for their moves, and how well it all flows together.
We can't wait to see the talented surfers competing at this year's Olympics.
To learn more about all the Olympic hopefuls, check out the Team GB site. Watch the Paris Olympics this summer on BBC One, BBC Two or a stream available by clicking the red button on Freeview or a smart TV.
Amanda Prahl is a freelance writer, playwright/lyricist, dramaturg, teacher, and copywriter/editor. Amanda has also contributed to Slate, Bustle, Mic, The Mary Sue, and others.