Sally Fitzgibbons’s want for the ladies’s elite subject within the World Surf League (WSL) to develop has come true, with the Championship Tour rising in 2026.
Fitzgibbons, former world primary and winner of 12 WSL occasions in her profession, has lengthy championed growth within the ladies’s subject.
This can occur beginning in 2026, with the Championship Tour (CT) subject rising from 18 surfers to 24 for every occasion.
Underneath the brand new format, occasions will embrace the highest 14 surfers from the CT, the highest seven qualifiers from the Challenger Collection, two WSL seasonal wildcards, and one occasion wildcard.
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A call remains to be to be made on whether or not the ladies’s mid-season reduce will stay at simply 10, which will probably be lowered to in 2025 after the seventh tour cease within the 11-event schedule.
It is nonetheless effectively wanting the lads’s 36-strong subject, however recognises the rising depth in ladies’s browsing and continued enchancment in ability degree.
A 15-year tour veteran, Fitzgibbons missed the mid-season reduce this 12 months for a 3rd straight 12 months as a result of she was ranked thirteenth when the axe got here down.
“I could not be extra pleased with the place the extent of ladies’s browsing is presently at,” Fitzgibbons, a three-time world champion runner-up, stated.
“Rising the tour is the subsequent logical step in that pure development.
“All around the world, ladies are stepping it up each time they hit the water, and on tour we’re seeing intense heats and fierce rivalries.
“It is what everybody needs to see. I am so stoked that it is occurring.”
Fitzgibbons just lately advised Surfer journal there was a glut of expertise and the smaller CT subject made ladies seem as a “facet piece” to the lads’s competitors.
“It is a large logjam right here on this (Challenger) collection, there may very well be a winner of one of many six Challenger occasions, and so they may nonetheless not qualify as a result of the 5 spots is simply so intense,” she stated.
“Let’s get extra ladies on tour after which while you’re watching the product you possibly can simply have that even unfold of days that you just’re watching women and men, as an alternative of perhaps sooner or later of ladies and three days of males’s browsing.
“It simply kind of evens out the ledger a bit of bit and it appears like much less of a facet piece.”
AAP/ABC
