Perhaps the biggest surprise coming out of the ASP’s announcement of the 2009 tour calendar is the fact that, without any explanation, the fourth stop on the World Tour, Fiji, has been cancelled. In the past, the Fiji event was cancelled because of political turmoil due to military coup d'états, but this time the ASP didn’t give any details behind the cancellation.

After receiving no response from the ASP when inquiring about the decision, I decided to do some digging. My guess before questioning my sources was the recent financial struggles of Globe, who has been the primary sponsor of the Fiji stop on the World Tour for the past few years. After talking to my sources however, turns out my guess was wrong.

Despite having one of the best, world-class waves in the world, the problem with Fiji is logistics. They had numerous technical issues last year with the webcast, stemming from an inability to handle the high demands of bandwidth. The webcast crashed numerous times, unable to handle the huge amounts of viewers who wanted to see the world’s top surfers ripping Cloudbreak.

And with Fiji’s government being completely uncooperative in meeting the contest’s technological demands, the ASP had no choice but to cancel the event. As a result, there will only be 10 stops on the World Tour next year, with the top eight results counted.

It’s a shame, Cloudbreak is truly one of the world’s greatest breaks, and to not be able to hold a contest there because of a lack of technology to handle huge viewership is a huge disappointment.

Pictures are of what we’ll miss in 2009.