Bourez, Hobgood, Buchan and Otton survive Round 2 of Billabong Rio Pro – Surfing news
French Polynesia’s Michel Bourez, America’s C.J. Hobgood and fellow Australians Adrian Buchan and Kai Otton emerged triumphant in their respective Billabong Rio Pro Round 2 heats.
The surfing conditions at the main event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, had be quite unsatisfactory during the past five days, which had compelled the event organisers to keep the contest on hold.
However, the much-awaited swell had finally arrived, thus enabling the Round 2 action at the third of ten stops on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour to get underway.
After failing to make much of an impact during their Round 1 heats, Bourez and Australia’s Yadin Nicol found themselves pitted against each other in a battle for survival during the fifth heat of Round 2.
Neither of the two surfers seemed too comfortable in the three-to-four-foot waves that were on offer at the Barra da Tijuca.
Bourez, however, eventually managed to clinch the win after registering a heat-total of 10.16 points against Nicol’s two-wave total of 8.67 points.
The sixth heat pitted Hobgood against Hawaii’s Dusty Payne in a battle for the Round 3 spot.
The American surfer took control of the heat with a couple of scores in the six-point range, which took him to a heat-total of 13.17 points. Payne failed to come up with a fitting response and was eventually forced to surrender after finishing with a heat-total
of 8.10 points.
The day continued to be a tough one for the Brazilian surfers, with Raoni Monteiro biting the dust in the seventh heat, which pitted him against Buchan.
It turned out to be an intense battle between Buchan and Monteiro, with both the surfers clearly in no mood to settle for anything less than a win.
The Australian surfer stood victorious once the dust settled, though just barely, courtesy of a heat-total of 14.93 points against his rival’s two-wave total of 14.33 points.
“I tried to get busy in the beginning and it’s hard to get out the back,” Buchan said after the heat. “I was out of position at the start of the heat and Raoni (Monteiro) wanted to surf on the inside. I had one at the start that I didn’t ride out of and
found a left, but that 9 was a diamond in the rough. I didn’t know if it was going to be really open, so I didn’t want to be too deep, but it was a pretty nice round barrel. It’s powerful out there and dumpy now that the tide’s gone out.”
Otton advanced to the third round after downing fellow countryperson Adam Melling in the eighth heat, finishing with a heat-total of 12.24 points against his rival’s heat-total of 12.20 points.
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