I chatted to Bronte Macaulay, WQS Junior surfer, earlier this year. Although she hails from Western Australia where the waves are frequently big and powerful (and has ex-WCT surfer and dad Dave Macaulay as her coach) she said most of the competition waves are on the east coast, often in difficult surf. She said:

You see some great surfers that you know have so much potential but they’re just not getting the waves. You know they might perform better if the waves were bigger.

Conditions at the Hurley Australian Open of Surfing this year were far from the days when the women surfed Tahiti as a WQS.

If you caught the moments of the live Fijian webcast when the competition first moved to Restaurants and the waves were small and windy, you probably tuned out. But if you were there in Round 4 when Tyler Wright and Sally Fitzgibbons came cleanly out of gaping barrels, or saw Malia Manuel and Sally Fitzgibbons again full throttle-charging in their semi, or saw Tatiana Weston-Webb slotted deep in a pit with a GoPro in her mouth, you would have been impressed.

As easy as it is to be critical from afar, what women’s professional surfing needs now is exactly what the ASP is giving it – stand-alone events in consequential waves where the women are the sole focus. The Surf Europe piece signs off saying “they could and should be doing better” and if they get that they surely will.