Surfing: Ricardo Christie calls for New Zealand to 'take surfing on board as a pro sport'

Ricardo Christie just missed out on qualifying for the World Tour last year. Photo: Getty Images.

Ask any surfer competing on the World Surf League qualifying series (QS) what it's like and they'll tell you the same thing – it's a grind.

Surfers bounce from event to event across the globe in search of vital points to lift them onto the Championship Tour (CT). It's not cheap, and if you're not winning, you're struggling to break even.

As Kiwi Ricardo Christie put it, you just have to "wing it from comp to comp."

Christie qualified for the CT on the 2014 QS. Taking on the best the world has to offer in 2015, he seemed to bring the best out of everyone he faced as, despite a year of quality surfing, he wasn't able to maintain his spot.

For the past few years, he's been working hard on the QS to get back to the CT and has been in the picture every time but has fallen just short.

Unlike big surfing nations such as Australia and the United States, New Zealand's top surfers struggled to get high performance coaching during the season as they have to pay for it out of their own pocket.

"You can see how it helps," Christie said.

"Every country that has a big surfing body in their country, they're open to so many services and stuff to help them blend with other athletes at the same level and stuff like that and everyone's sharing knowledge.

"It'd be really cool if New Zealand could kind of take surfing on board as a professional sport as well. With a bit of luck that'll happen in the next couple of years."

Christie's campaign on the QS begins on Monday with the first major event of the year, at Newcastle's Merewether Beach. It's immediately followed by another QS6000 in Manly.

When he's not competing, Christie said he would now be able to have access to more high performance coaching this year, with help from former All White Noah Hickey and ex-All Black Adam Thompson's management company WeAreTENZING.

Over $35,000 had been raised toward Christie's qualification bid and, while he was grateful for the financial backing, he said the mentorship he had received from Hickey had been "amazing."

"Just having someone who knows what it takes as an athlete and passing on his knowledge to me and allowing me to focus on being an athlete. It's been a cool energy to have for the start of the year.

"I just had such a close year last year and I guess they just wanted me to commit to doing it again and not throw in the towel," Christie said. "I was committed as well; I just probably would have been banking on winning the first couple of events."