Kirra Klassic surfing competition defends decision not to hold women’s open division

A battle of the sexes is brewing on the waves and it threatens to overshadow a Gold Coast surfing competition.

The Kirra Longboard Klassic professional open division is available to men and women competing for a total prize pool of $5,500.

Professional surfer Lucy Small said the Kirra Klassic should instead split the $5,500 prize equally between separate men’s and women’s divisions.

“When you have a mixed division like that, the chances of a man winning the money are a lot higher so it’s not really fair,” she told her social media followers this week.

Small said that after sponsors knocked back her suggestion to split the prize pool, she then organised for a group of women to nominate for all 16 available slots.

She said 15 women and one man nominated but that the man decided to withdraw after speaking to her, paving the way for an all-female open division.

But Kirra Longboard Klassic director Sean McKeown said the women have “not thought this through”.

“The object of this particular division is high-performance surfing,” he said.

“The girls are not particularly good. There’s only a few of them in Australia that are really good at high performance.”

‘Ballet dancers on a surfboard’

Mr McKeown said female surfing is “far more stylish” and is not best suited for professional longboard competitions.

“It’s a bit of a strength thing. There are some girls that can do it and do it very well,” he said.

“In general, the girls tend to be more like ballet dancers on a surfboard and they look really good doing what they do.”

Mr McKeown said the Kirra Klassic has provided a fair opportunity for surfers.

“We had made this an open division so that men and women could compete equally on the same waves against each other,” he said.

 

“If I turned around and made it a man’s division, what would the reaction be?”

Small said, “it’s a bummer that women’s surfing is so disappointing to people that when they open up a division and it fills up with women they can’t support that”.

Mr McKeown said Small has “hijacked this on a political basis rather than an actual ability basis”.

Small used sponsorship money to help pay for the nomination fees which Mr McKeown said could have instead been used to fund a prize pool for women.

But Small said the money wouldn’t have been enough for an equal prize pool.

“The men didn’t have to organise their own sponsor.”

Event still going ahead

Gold Coast surfing commentator Terry ‘Tappa’ Teece said an open division is “fair enough” but he “can see why the girls are upset”.

“A lot of times they’ll have those women’s division and there’s not many people in it and [the organisers] lose a bit of money on it,” he said.

“But this is obviously proved the point that they [women] will go in it.

“Normally most events have open men and open women.”

Mr McKeown said the event will still go ahead at the end of July.

“I don’t think it’ll be quite as good a spectacle,” he said.

“I’ve had one of the girls withdraw this morning and I do have a reserve list.

“That will be a male, so that it’s not going to be an all-girl division.”