Damien Hobgood and Blake Thornton power into Round 2 of 2012 Telstra Drug Award Pro
America’s Damien Hobgood and Australia’s Blake Thornton walked away with top honours from their respective Round 1 (Round of 96) heats of the 2012 Telstra Drug Aware Pro that continued at Margaret River in Australia on Tuesday, March 20.
The successful Round 1 heats served to take both Hobgood and Thornton into the next round (Round of 48). New Zealand’s Billy Stairmand and Brazil’s Hizunome Bettero also advanced through into the next round after securing first runner-up positions in the
fifth and sixth heat respectively.
The six-to-eight foot waves on offer at the primary event site on day of the latest Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime rated event gave surfers an opportunity to unleash their technical tricks and showcase their style as they battled it out
to stay alive in the competition.
Pitted against Stairmand, South Africa’s Royden Bryson and Australia’s Thomas Woods in the fifth heat, defending event champion Hobgood put on an impressive performance to get his hands on top honours.
The American surfer locked a right-hander to score a 7.83 off it and backed it up with a 6.70 to move to a heat-total of 14.53 points. The score turned out to be a winning one, confirming his place in the next round.
“There are some squalls that came in and out so you had to pick waves when the wind was better,” Hobgood said. “It was fun. There were a lot of waves and it was breaking all over the place so everyone was spread out. I enjoyed it. You’ve got to be a little
bit lucky out there and try to find the waves that allow you to do one big turn. I’m super stoked to be back in Margaret River, I’m loving the waves and this whole place.”
Stairmand made the Round 2 cut as well after finishing in runner-up place with a heat-total of 12.27 points, which included a 5.00 and 7.27-point wave.
Bryson and Woods were forced to make a premature exit from the competition after rounding out the bottom-two positions with a heat-total of 9.90 and 5.76 points respectively.
The sixth heat saw Thornton claim victory after collecting a 7.67 and 5.83 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 13.50 points.
Bettero joined him in the next round after scoring a heat-total of 12.00 points, which included a 4.17 and 7.83-point wave.
Australia’s Matt Wilkinson and Brazil’s Flavio Nakagima got removed from the contention for the event title after finishing with a heat-total of 10.84 and 7.56 points.
Tags: