Alvaro Malpartida downs Anthony Walsh to take out ASP 3-Star Maui and Sons Arica Pro – Surfing news
Peru’s Alvaro Malpartida walked away with the over-all win at the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 3-Star Maui and Sons Arica Pro presented by Monster Energy and Sony after beating Australia’s Anthony Walsh in the finals that took place at the
reef break of El Gringo in Arica, Chile, on Saturday, June 15, 2013.
The outstanding win allowed the Malpartida to take him a winner’s prize cheque of US$8,000, as well as coveted 750 ASP World Ranking points.
“This wave (El Gringo) is my favorite in the world,” said Malpartida during his post-final interview. “The truth is, I can’t describe how I’m feeling right now, but it’s one of the best days of my life. It’s incredible to win a contest with barrels like
we had today and beat Anthony (Walsh), who surfs great in heavy waves. As well as Gabriel (Villaran) and Marco Giorgi who also surfed well all week. It also felt amazing to hear the crowd cheering for me, thank you to everyone.”
A huge crowd was in attendance on the final day of Maui and Sons Arica Pro to watch the up-and-coming surfing talent put their impressive skills on display.
The four-to-six foot waves on offer at the primary event site created a perfect stage for the decisive battles of the competition to take place in. There were plenty of potential scoring opportunities on offer, though the surfers forced to rely heavily on
their judgement to pick the right waves and refrain from wasting their energy on waves that did not have enough juice to let them pull off their manoeuvres.
Malpartida and Walsh had been doing very well since the start of the proceedings on the final day of the competition. Both of them had successfully held their own during their quarter-final as well as semi-final heats, in which they were pitted against pretty
formidable talent.
Once they managed to get into the finals, they found themselves staring at the daunting task of holding their own against each other to claim victory.
The battle got off to an interesting start, with Walsh locking his first business-wave to claim an early lead. However, he failed to backed it up with a solid score and eventually had to settle for a heat-total of 11.50 points.
Malpartida adopted a conservative approach, waiting for the right waves to appear before using up his energy.
His wait did not turn out to be in vain, as he eventually managed to get hold of a couple of juicy waves, which he converted to a heat-total of 13.00 points.
The score held up ahead of his rival until the end to see him through to victory.
Despite failing to claim the overall win, Walsh was pretty content with making it into the finals.
Tags: