That’s all folks! Pack in the baguettes, burn your berets and delete the underground techno from your play lists. The European vacation is over and the top of the WQS ratings is temporarily set before we finish out the year. Jeremy Flores wrapped up the European leg of the men’s Grind with a win at the 6-Star Billabong Buondi Pro in Portugal, however the next big developments for our global campaigners will be at the World Tour level. Who will double-qualify? Who needs to man up? Read on and find out. Read on to hear what Al has to say:
Last week’s Buondi Billabong Pro made only minor changes to the WQS standings.
Jeremy Flores jumped from 33rd to 9th but seeing he is 12th on the Foster’s ASP World Tour ratings, I doubt he will need his WQS rating to qualify. This means we can look down towards 16th now as the cutoff, even though CJ Hobgood is also qualifying on the World Tour, but at 25th, is not a safe bet yet.
So the cutoff is now with Gabe Kling at 9,920 - up about 200 points from 9,726 after Hossegor and gradually creeping up towards a possible 10,500 plus end of year total.
As there are no more major WQS events until the end of October, I don’t see any changes in the top end of the WQS ratings. However, with the Pantin Classic in Spain and Garorade Classic in Brazil offering 4 star points, there will be some movement amongst the guys lower down putting them into striking distance of the top coming into the Canary Island 6 Star PRIME and two Brazilian WQS 6 Star events.
The main focus over the next month and a half will be on the upcoming Foster’s Men’s Tour events in Trestles, Hossegor and Mundaka to see if the ASP Top 45 guys in the WQS Top 16 will need their WQS rating or not.
If any of CJ Hobgood, Rodrigo Dornelles, Luke Munro, Neco Padaratz and Gabe Kling do really well and move into a solid position on the Foster’s ASP World Tour ratings, then the WQS total could drop as they would no longer need to qualify via the WQS.
For more on the ASP World Qualifying Series and the World Championship Tours, visit www.ASPWorldTour.com