Three women training to judge surfing competitions

SURFING Association Papua New Guinea (SAPNG) Incorporated is preparing for the second Kumul PNG World Longboard Surfing Championships which will be staged in Kavieng, New Ireland, in early 2022.
As part of its preparations, SAPNG and International Surfing Association (ISA) Incorporated are running an online judging course for women in the sport this week.
ISA has more than 65 member nations around the world of which SAPNG has been an affiliate for the last 31 years.
ISA selected three female SAPNG members from its 11 member surf clubs for the course and they were Sylvia Pascoe (Pyramid Board Riders, Port Moresby), Zenaleze Clark (Central Niuailan, New Ireland) and Florence Saki (Shalom, West Sepik).
The course started on Wednesday and ends today.
The course facilitators are ISA professional surfer and coach Erik Krammer, and former world longboard champion Tory Gilkerson.
Gilkerson competed in the inaugural 2017 Kumul PNG World Longboard Surfing Championships which were staged at Tupira in Bogia, Madang.
SAPNG contest director Jason Pini said: “We are really excited about the course.”
He said it was important to empower women from all over the world to have the opportunity to judge and participate at the highest level of surfing.
Pini said helping women progress in all aspects of the sport had been a fundamental policy of SAPNG for many years.
He said having a say in how a competition was run would only enhance the sport in PNG.
SAPNG president and co-founder Andrew Abel said the course would allow the three women to judge at club level, the national surf championships, Oceania Surfing Federation Championships and the 2022 World Longboard Championships which would be live streamed.
As SAPNG marked 31 years of existence, Abel said it was the beginning of greater women’s participation in surfing with the organisation’s empowerment policy safeguarding their interests.