Barbados Surf Pro: 264 Surfers to Compete at Soup Bowl in East Coast for WSL Qualifying Series Season Finale

The Soup Bowl is set to be ablaze.

That’s because 264 surfers have been confirmed for the 13th edition of the Barbados Surf Pro and are set to hit the waves of the East Coast at the Soup Bowl in Bathsheba, St Joseph, from March 24 to 30.

The Barbados Surf Pro will also be the season finale of the 2024-2025 World Surf League (WSL) North America Qualifying Series (QS) and Pro Junior season. The Barbados Surf Pro QS 5 000 and Live Like Zander Junior Pro QS 1 000, in loving memory of Zander Venezia, is presented by Diamonds International for the fourth year, in partnership with the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI).

Down to compete in the event are 168 male and 96 female surfers.

Barbadian surfers Chelsea Roett, Chelsea Tuach and Joshua Burke, who have all travelled around the world to compete, will once again have home surf advantage as they battle for valuable qualifying points and a possible $100 000, which will be split among the men’s and women’s classes.

Co-founder of the Barbados Surf Pro, Louis Venezia, said that coming to the island would be some of the world’s best surfers as Barbados offered way too many points to pass up for World Surf League qualification.

“We got a full complement of top-quality surfers, including past WSL champions, and among those will be last year’s champions (Surf Pro) Zoe Benedetto and Lucca Mesinas, and all of the guys [who] qualified for the Challenger Series last year are going to be here as well.

“The event here is rated at 5 000, which means there are 5 000 points on offer and to give you some sort of a guideline, it goes a 1 000, a 3 000, and a 5 000. There were only two 3 000s this year and then all the other ones were 1 000.

“So even if you win a 1 000, you’re only getting 1 000 points. However, if you come 16th or 18th in this event you get the same 1 000 points, so it’s a huge event. This means all of the top guys have to come to protect their seeding and protect their spot on that list so that’s why you see the complement of those types of surfers who are here,” he added.

Venezia said that while the prize money for seniors and juniors was important, it was not the major reason. He said the surfers would be more focused on sealing qualification to the WSL for next season.

The former Rally Barbados winner, who won the event alongside former Barbados Surfing Association president, the late Paul “Surfer” Bourne in 2003, added that this event would also expose Barbados’ tourism product to millions around the world.

This sentiment was also shared by the manager of sports at the BTMI, Kamal Springer, who said the even brought valuable tourism dollars.

“Last year, we had about 500 visitors to the island and I think it was spread evenly, about 250 athletes, another 250 in visitors, and that generated an economic impact of around $2.1 million minimum.

“This year, we’re hoping to get up to 600 and so far we’re looking that way. we’re at about 300 athletes. That grows with the spectators, the coaches and the fans and as that grows, we hope to get close to the 600 mark, which will give us an economic impact of close to $2.5 to 2.6 million.”