Bede Durbidge shows strong determination at Quiksilver Pro France
Australia’s Bede Durbidge had not been in the best of forms during the 2012 season of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour.
Sharing the waves with the best in the business, the battles are never expected to be easy and unfortunately for the Australian surfer, he was ending up with the most undesirable results on consistent basis.
Sitting in the lower half of the ASP World Title rankings, Durbidge had plenty of reason to start worrying about getting results and ensuring that the successfully qualified for next year elite tour.
Therefore, he arrived at La Graviere in Hossegor, France, full of determination to get himself a good result at the seventh of ten stops on the ASP World Championship Tour, Quiksilver Pro France.
The very opening round of the competition pitted him against America’s Dane Reynolds and Australia’s Joel Parkinson, both of whom are considered to be the best in the business.
As expected, the result of the heat did not turn out to be what Durbidge had hoped for as the American surfer proved to be in a solid form.
After tasting Round 1 defeat, the Australian surfer found himself having to take the long road to Round 3, having to face the pressure of elimination in the second round.
Competing with him in his Round 2 heat was Brazil’s Heitor Alves, who had failed to hold his own against South Africa’s Jordy Smith in the opening round.
Where the two surfers had struggled to put on a decent show in conditions prevailing at the event site during the opening round of Quiksilver Pro France, the waves on offer during their Round 2 bout were even more challenging and demanded something really
special.
Already short on confidence after the Round 1 stumble, both the surfers had their work cut out for them as they got set to take each other on in a man-on-man battle for survival.
As the heat got underway, Durbidge did not waste much time to get down to business. Determined to settle for nothing other but the win, the Australian surfer locked his first business-wave in the opening minutes of the heat to unload a series of powerful
turns, posting a 5.67 on the score-board.
The excellent start was just what he needed to exert pressure on his rival and gain confidence. He had to wait a while before coming across another decent scoring opportunity.
However, the long wait eventually paid off as he got hold of a juicy wave. Pulling off a string of exquisite tricks, he earned a 7.50 for the effort to get to a heat-total of 13.17 points.
Alves did not appear to be the best of forms during his latest heat as well and therefore only managed to get his hands on a 4.67 and 2.70 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 7.37 points.
The lacklustre performance by the Brazilian surfer allowed Durbidge to walk away with a convincing victory, successfully securing his place in the third round to continue his pursuit of his first good result of the season.
However, it was still too soon to start celebrating as the Australian still had to deal with a number of surfing heavy-weights, most of whom were in a formidable form, as already seen in the opening round of Quiksilver Pro France.
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