Papua New Guinea officials get surf judging tickets

 Course participants and officials at Sero Beach outside Port Moresby last Sunday.-Picture courtesy of PNGSA

 

By MALUM NALU

 

The second round of the International Surfing Association surf judging and officiating course was completed in Port Moresby last weekend.

Twenty participants, including Supreme Court judge and Tupira Surf Club patron, Nicholas Kirriwom, partook in the course.

The Surfing Association of Papua New Guinea (SAPNG) staged the course with head coach of Surfing Australia, Glen Elliot, running it.

This is Elliot’s third time into PNG, his first trip being in 2004 to facilitate the first ISA Level 1 course and then in 2007, where he head judged the SAPNG national Surfing titles in Vanimo.

“The SAPNG now has 10 clubs around PNG and as we lead up to staging of the next national surf titles at Tupira Surf Club in Madang in 2011, SAPNG has had to invest into its human resource to beef up its number of qualified judges to enable them to stage and judge competitions at the community and provincial affiliated surf clubs, and then at the national titles and South Pacific Games in 2011 and also 2015,” said SAPNG president Andrew Abel.

“The SAPNG will be staging the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Qualifying Series (WQS) and the World Long boarding Title (WLT) in Vanimo in 2011 and hence, SAPNG has had to beef up its number of judges to be part of the judging process.

“These events will be co-hosted by ASP Australasia and SAPNG.

“SAPNG plans to make this a permanent fixture in its calendar of events to showcase PNG as an attractive surf tourism destination and give our surfers an opportunity to compete on the world stage on home soil.

“This investment by SAPNG is a significant one costing over K20,000 to empower our surfers and judges to ensure SAPNG meets the required international surf judging and officiating standards that all 50 members of the International Surfing Association (ISA) use in competition surfing.”

Participants were Nicholas Kirriwom,  Roger Kirriwom, Isidore Gemo,  Keneka Malaha , Hardie Tomol (Tupira Surf Club – Madang); Nolis  David, Junior Yanga (Kavieng Surf Club  - New Ireland); Steven Tekwie, Tekla Wekre, Henry Nyekre (Sunset Surf Club – V animo); Martha Moihe, John Awoli (Vanimo Surf Club – Vanimo);  John Toles ( SAPNG board member), Richard Farrell (SAPNG board member and Sero Surf club – POM), Charles Andrews (Sero Surf Club – POM), Chey Scovell (SAPNG board member and Sero Surf Club – POM), Nick Studdy   (SAPNG board member and Sero Surf Club – POM),  Joao Monteroao (Sero Surf Club – POM), Christian Lohburger (Sero Surf Club – POM), Alberta Taligatus (Sero Surf Club – POM).

Officials included Elliot, Abel, SAPNG board member, contest director, observer and Level 2 judge Jason Pini and PNGSA patron Kieran Nash.