Aamion Goodwin and Jamie O’Brien survive Round 2 of Billabong Pipe Masters – 2011 ASP World Tour
The second round of Billabong Pipe Masters, the final stop of the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour and Van’s Triple Crown of Surfing, continued to cut off heads as the surfers battled it out for survival at Banzai Pipeline in Oahu,
Hawaii, on Thursday, December 8. The action continued with Hawaii’s Aamion Goodwin taking on America’s Taylor Knox in the fifth heat, while Hawaii’s Jamie O’Brien squared off with Brazil’s Raoni Monteiro in the sixth heat.
Despite not quite adjusting to the demanding conditions that were on offer at the event site, Goodwin still managed to walk away with top honours, successfully advancing through into Round 3 while removing the much-more experienced Knox from the contention
for the event-title.
The sixth heat saw O’Brien prevail over Monteiro in yet another low-scoring contest. The victory carried O’Brien into the next round while bringing the competition to a premature end for his competitor.
The 15-to-20 foot waves had been troubling the surfers since morning and little seemed to have changed during the after-noon. The deadly barrels proved to be quite intimidating for the surfers, pushing even the local surfers on the back-foot.
As the fifth heat of Round 2 got underway, both Goodwin and Knox found themselves as clueless during their confrontation with the mammoth-sized waves as they were in Round 1. The 33-year-old Goodwin found the possession of the local knowledge of the waves
of little help, while the vast experienced of Knox remained pretty useless during the 40-minute battle.
In the end, a mere 1.07 and 1.13-point wave proved to be sufficient to earn Goodwin a win over Knox, who finished with a heat-total of 2.13 points that comprised of a 1.60 and 0.53-point wave. The Hawaiian may have survived the heat but he surely needed
to do a lot of work on his adaptation to the waves as he headed into Round 3.
The sixth heat featured a huge upset as the formidable Brazilian force, Monteiro, got eliminated from the competition after getting defeated by the 28-year-old O’Brien.
The heat turned out to be pretty low on action as both the surfers struggled to catch waves during the 40-minute battle. O’Brien caught his only wave almost five minutes into the heat to post a 5.33 on the score-board. In response, Monteiro caught a number
of waves, but his top-two scores came almost 30 minutes into the battle. The two top scores included a 1.33 and a 1.50, adding up to a heat-total of 2.83 points. As a result, the Brazilian was forced to surrender victory to O’Brien.
For more updates on Round 2 of the 2011 ASP World Tour, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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