Carissa Moore downs Sally Fitzgibbons to earn title shot at Nike US Open of Surfing
Hawaii’s Carissa Moore barely managed to reach the final at Nike US Open of Surfing, the seventh and final stop on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Championship Tour, after claiming victory over Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons
in the second Semi-final that went down at Huntington Beach in California, America, on Sunday, August 5.
The battle turned out to be exactly what was expected of a clash between the titans, with both the surfers fighting tooth-and-nail in solid surfing conditions.
Mother Nature had graced the event site with high-performance waves on the final day of the event, which subsequently promised a heavy dose of enthralling surfing action as the in-form elite ASP female surfers took each other on in a one-on-one battle for
a spot in the finals.
Moore, former ASP Women’s World Champion, had left no doubt about her potential during the previous season and even though things had not exactly turned out the way she would have liked, she was well-placed to finish the current season in top-three.
Fitzgibbons, on the other hand, had continued her momentum from the previous event to put on several strong performances over the last week. For yet another year, she had found the ASP Women’s World Title barely elude her, though she still managed to secure
the No.2 spot on the rankings.
As the second Semi-final got underway, the 21-year-old Fitzgibbons hardly wasted any time to take control of the heat. Locking a juicy wave early in the heat, she posted a 7.50 on the score-board to move into an early lead. Keeping the momentum going, she
followed it up with an 8.75-point ride, thus moving to a heat-total of 16.07 points.
As the heat progressed, the pressure kept mounting on Moore as she found herself trailing behind the rampaging Australian surfer. The urgency began to become apparent in her hunt for a couple of good scores as the clock ticked away.
The Hawaiian surfer eventually managed to chip away at her rival’s lead after finding an 8.43-point ride and backing it up with an 8.20-point wave in the final minutes of the heat, thus finishing with a heat-total of 16.63 points. The excellent last-minute
effort by Moore deprived Fitzgibbons of victory.
“It’s a tough one,” Fitzgibbons said. “No one wants to lose like that. It was a split (judging) panel and I felt like I surfed to the criteria. I had built myself a good momentum through the event and felt like I was ready for the Finals. We’re athletes.
We’re here to win and anything less than that is always going to be a disappointment.”
With a semi-final win, Moore headed into the final to face America’s Lakey Peterson for the event title.
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