Frustrated female stand-up paddlers from around the world, including some from Orange County, are taking to social media to voice their outrage after one of the biggest events in their sport’s history failed to include a category for women.
The Red Bull Heavy Water APP World Tour event Friday, Oct. 20 in San Francisco has 32 male athletes competing for $50,000 in prize money, with $20,000 going to the event champion — the largest payout to date for an event in the growing sport. And for the second year in a row, women are not competing.
San Clemente’s Candice Appleby, one of the best female stand-up paddlers in the world, posted her frustration online along with others hoping to send a message to contest organizers. They are using the hashtag “#Ipaddleforequality.”
“It’s just the right thing to do. It’s not brain surgery. It’s not hard to figure out. We’re humans,” she said.
Red Bull and the Association of Paddlesurf Professionals issued a statement on Friday saying the sponsors and organizers of the event discussed engaging female participants with the Paddlers’ Collective in early September when the event was announced, but there was no follow-up on behalf of the Paddlers’ Collective. Red Bull and APP said they hope they will see female participation in Red Bull Heavy Water in 2018 and beyond.
Other events, including the Pacific Paddle Games in Doheny each September, offer divisions for both genders and equal prize money for men’s and women’s categories. That’s how it should be for all events in the fast-growing sport, Appleby argues.
“Our goal here is to just push things forward in the right direction for our sport, so women have an equal opportunity to participate on an equal level,” she said. “We’re not trying to say we want to compete against the men, we want to compete in our own division, for that same prize money.”
New Zealander and PPG champion Annabel Anderson posted frustrations about the gender inequality earlier this week, and the APP Tour Director reached out to Appleby and Fiona Wylde to discuss the matter in a last-minute effort to get female competitors just three days before the event.
“This is extremely unprofessional. As professional athletes we know the importance of preparation. The male athletes have been in San Francisco for over two weeks training in the challenging environment, and have a year to mentally and physically prepare. A three-day last-minute invite to women is not notice, it is unprofessional,” Appleby wrote.
Organizers invited Wylde, offering a fully paid trip for her to be the lone female participant against the males.
“We deemed this unfair and very disrespectful to the deep field of women in our sport around the world,” Abbleby wrote. “It is not hard to notice the lack of transparency in these actions, and the disregard for the female athletes as a whole. We are not to be an afterthought. We have been here all along, and we want an equal opportunity to participate.”
It’s not a matter of whether females can handle the rough waters — they’ve proven plenty of times they can compete in heavy conditions, Appleby said.
“This one instance symbolizes stuff that shouldn’t be going on,” Appleby said. “We want a shot, you know. We want opportunity. It’s not about proving ourselves. We’ve proven ourselves good enough. We’ve had plenty of performances where we’ve competed in big waves.”
Female surfers have in recent years pushed back against events that are unfair based on gender. More women’s contests have been added to big-wave events, such as last year’s Mavericks surf contest in Northern California.
Less than a decade ago, some surf contests would hand out $100,000 to the top male competitor and $10,000 for the first-place female. That gap has lessened over the years on the World Surf League level, to $100,000 for the top male, $50,000 for the top female.