Day one of the Natural Selection surf contest is currently playing live on YouTube. The concept is the brainchild of Snowboarder Travis Rice who originally started the Natural Selection tour for Snowboarding in 2021 as a way of taking competition a little more off-piste.

For their debut in surfing, Natural Selection have gone above and beyond to ensure that make a bold statement. They’ve taken 12 of the world’s best free surfers to a remote location in Micronesia where they face off at a slab-like right hand point which is at the top of the richter scale in terms of difficulty and extreme.

Those competing are: Soli Bailey, Al Cleland Jr, Harry Bryant, Eithan Osborne, Noah Beschen, Kauli Vaast, Victor Bernardo, Mikey February, Coco Ho, Milla Brown, Kirra Pinkerton and Anne Dos Santos.

The format

Competing in one hour sessions, two brackets of four men and the four women surf together. The surfer in each opening session that judges select as having the best overall session moves straight to finals day. Then in a second round of sessions, acting as a repocharge for the women and a semi for the men, the six men break into two sessions and the women into another, with again the best overall surfer moving into the final.

NST’s judging system does away with traditional scores and embraces a more organic approach. ‘CREDO’, a judging framework first designed for Natural Selection’s snowboarding events, has been adjusted to surfing and will be used to assess the athletes’ performances based on Creativity, Risk, Execution, Difficulty, and Overall impression. The panel of judges is made up of Brad Gerlach, Pam Burridge and Ian Crane.

Click the link above to check out the first round of sessions. The finals will air on Friday 7am (AEDT).