How Is Italo Ferreira Not In The World Title Race?

Did you forget, in the space of just seven days and due to factors involving wavepools and Chippa Wilson, that the World Title Race is still underway?

Yeah, us too.

But there are a few individuals, three of them in particular, who will lose sleep over their World Title chances for the next month-and-a-half.

I’m here to argue there should be four.

The boy with the koala tattoo. Photo: @italoferreira

Bells, Keramas, and now Supertubos.

Those are the three waves Italo Ferreira dominated this season, giving him his first career CT victories and the highest comp earnings of any surfer in 2018 ($386,500).

Yet somehow, with one event left on the schedule, Italo Ferreira isn’t in the World Title race. Even if he won Pipe (making that his fourth W of the year) and Medina, Wilson, and Toledo all got last, Italo still could not hold the goblet come season’s end.

And this seems odd, right? That a surfer could win more than one-third of the season’s events (with his next closest competitor winning just one-sixth) and still not be in the running for best competitive surfer of the year?

If you look at Italo’s scoreline, it’s clear why he’s not in the top 3 – Koala Man’s got a bag full of 1sts and 13ths while Julian, Gabriel, and Filipe have a healthy arrangement of quarters, semis, and finals. But I’d argue there’s something powerful about winning the most events as opposed to just placing in a majority of them, and that “something” should be considered by the WSL.

Funnily enough, it has.

Before the start of the 2018 season, the WSL quietly changed the point totals for CT placings. For reference:

The point spread from 2011-2017 was:

1st: 10,000 points

2nd: 8,000 points

3rd: 6,500 points

5th: 5,200 points

9th: 4,000 points

13th: 1,750 points

25th: 500 points

The point spread for 2018 is:

1st: 10,000 points

2nd: 7,800 points

3rd: 6,085 points

5th: 4,745 points

9th: 3,700 points

13th: 1,665 points

25th: 420 points

All up, that leads to the following point differences: 

2nd: -200 point difference from 2017

3rd: -415 point difference from 2017

5th: -450 point difference from 2017

9th: -300 point difference from 2017

13th: -85 point difference from 2017

25th: -80 point difference from 2017

Looking at the numbers, it’s clear the WSL developed this new system to further reward higher placings. Results between 9th-3rd took a big hit in points, which ultimate gives more value to finalists.

However, this Italo situation begs the question: is a 2,200 point difference between 1st and 2nd big enough?

In other words, does Italo Ferreira deserve a spot in the Title race?