Frederico Morais and Michael February prevail in Round 3 of CHIKO Pro Junior at Newcastle’s Surfest
Portugal’s Frederico Morais and South Africa’s Michael February won their Round 3 (Round of 64) heats to move into Round 4 (Round of 32) of CHIKO Pro Junior at Newcastle’s Surfest that continued at the Merewether Beach in New South Wales, Australia, on Friday,
March 9.
The surfing conditions at the primary event site had turned out to be pretty demanding on day 1 of the 4-Star Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Men’s Junior Qualifying event, keeping majority of the surfers from getting big scores. However, the
situation had improved a lot on the second day, with the waves lowering to four-to-five foot range and giving more options for the surfers to score big.
Morais utilised the promising waves on offer on the latest day of competition to take down his Australian rivals that included Josh Hay, Jake Sylvester and Izak Clifford.
As the battle got underway, the Portuguese surfer managed to read the conditions pretty well and caught a couple of decent waves to post a 4.10 and 6.25 on the score-board. The resultant heat-total of 10.35 points served to bring him victory and put him
in the Round 4 line-up.
Hay secured runner-up place after scoring a 6.00 and 3.15 off his best-two waves for a heat-total of 9.15 points. The effort resulted in extended his life in the competition.
The defending CHIKO Pro Junior champion Sylvester failed to impress the judges with his surfing. Earning a 5.00 and 3.00 off his two business-waves, he finished in third place to get eliminated from the competition.
“Horrendous,” Sylvester commented on his performance. “I surfed early and felt really good this morning when I was free-surfing. I’ve surfed here just about every day of my life and to be caught continually in the wrong spot was really disappointing.”
Clifford also got removed from the contention for the event-title after finishing with a heat-total of 6.65 points.
The 12th heat of Round 3 saw February put on a spectacular performance to claim top honours. The South African collected a 6.75 off his first business-wave and later locked a wave to unload a series of tricks to earn a 9.10 for the effort, moving
to a heat-total of 15.85 points.
Australia’s Connor O’Leary survived the heat as well after clinching runner-up place through his heat-total of 10.10 points, which included a 4.50 and 5.60-point wave.
Chris Robertson and Tom Hatcher, both from Australia, rounded out the bottom-two positions after finishing with a heat-total of 7.10 and 5.00 points respectively, consequently getting removed from the contention for the event-title.
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