Alessa Quizon overcomes Courtney Conlogue to move into Billabong Women’s Rio Pro Semi-finals
Hawaii’s Alessa Quizon got the better of America’s Courtney Conlogue in the first Quarter-final of Billabong Women’s Rio Pro, the fifth of seven stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Tour, that went down at the primary
event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday, May 12.
While the conclusion of the battle served to carry Quizon into the Semi-final stage, it also marked the end of the road for Conlogue as far as the latest women’s elite tour event.
The top ASP female surfers did not have an easy going on day 4 of Billabong Women’s Rio Pro, with the surfing conditions turning out to be as demanding as ever. The tricky one-to-two foot waves offered very little to the surfers to work with, leaving them
to rely heavily on their luck and experience. Getting hold of one of the few juicy waves that appeared during the course of the battles was what really determined the ultimate outcome. It was turning out to be a real tough contest, with a real desperate hunt
for a couple of good scores in order to secure a place in the Semi-finals.
The first Quarter-final saw Quizon and Conlogue take each other on for the Semi-final slot on offer. Both the surfers had done quite well to reach this far in the competition despite having to surf in really challenging conditions. Quizon in particular had
been a real standout performer considering her event wild-card status and the fact that she was up against the best female surfers of 2011.
As the Quarter-final clash got underway, Conlogue got off to a promising start, locking her first business-wave in the early minutes of the heat to post a 5.50 on the score-board. She continued her search to eventually get hold of a juicy wave that appeared
halfway through the heat. Unloading a string of exquisite tricks, she managed to add an additional 7.00 points to her account, thus moving to a heat-total of 12.50 points.
The 18-year-old Quizon adjusted to the tricky conditions quite nicely as well and put up a remarkable fight to challenge her American rival’s position. Scoring an impressive 7.60 off her first business-wave she got herself in a position to go for the win.
In the dying minutes of the battle, she performed the coup de grace with a 5.17-point ride, which took her to a heat-total of 12.77 points, just 0.27 points ahead of her rival’s. As a result, she successfully moved into the Semi-finals while eliminating Conlogue
from the competition.
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