The World Surf League (WSL) announced a restructuring in its men's and women's longboard tour.
The 2019 season will feature a four-stop circuit that will culminate with the Taiwan Open World Longboard Champs, in December.
Professional longboarders will have the opportunity to compete in the official WSL Longboard Championship Tour (WLC) events, but also in the several Longboard Qualifying Series (LQS) contests run by the regional WSL offices.
All regional champions will earn an automatic ticket for the elite WLC competitions.
The goal of WSL is to provide more opportunities for longboarders, create more events for them to compete, have more prizes to fight for, and increase the athletes' visibility so that they may attract more sponsorships.
Loggers of the World, Rejoice
These LQS events will be targeted at longboarders who do not have many opportunities to showcase their classic surfing style due to the few opportunities that were created in the past.
The videos and pictures posted on the WSL social networks have had very positive feedback from the community and showed that shortboard fans also enjoy surfing on longboards.
The Taiwan Open Longboard Champs will be the biggest event of the season and will undoubtedly crown world champions because it is the only one delivering 10,000 points for the rankings.
At this stage, only 24 surfers will compete in both the men's and women's divisions, which will offer the biggest prize - $60,000 - for men and also for women.
The last event of the season will feature the top 8 in Taiwan in 2018, the top 12 in the 2019 rankings, plus four guests.