ockanui said..I wonder if Surf NSW can follow Surf QLD and have an exhibition or community sup longboard event at this weekends titles? It's probably all to late for them to organize but it would be a good start as there are some pretty hotfooted longboarders that preside in Sydney northern beaches...
I think it's great that state and national titles events are looking to include other categories that don't conform to the ISA standards. However, can we not call them community events? To me, that's so incredibly condescending. It sounds like a social category open to holiday makers who walk up and ask to have a go at this SUP thing they've heard so much about. Exhibition categories is not too bad, but really, why can't they be recognised as state and national titles? Just because they don't qualify the winners for the ISA event? Seriously, who gives a flying fig about the ISA event? This is what we are trying to tell these people - the ISA categories in surfing and racing are not what the vast majority of SUP people are interested in. This is why state titles ends up with 12 people competing. Because we don't give a stuff. And you won't fix that by adding in a tokenistic community sideshow category that gives every indication that the organisers don't respect the category. I appreciate that Surfing Australia has a vested interest in focussing attention on ISA categories as they receive funding according to the number of "world champions" they produce, but if this is at the expense of running events that the majority of people want to attend, then don't come whinging to us when we don't turn up.
