Gabe Kling and Lincoln Taylor qualify for Round 2: First round of Super Surf International – Part 6
The Super Surf International was done with 10 heats in the round of 96 and yet there was still more surfing action in store for the surfing fans on the first day of the ASP Prime event. A total of 14 heats were still left in the first round, which meant
56 surfers were still not sure about their fate at the event site, Praia da Vila.
The 11th heat kicked off with America’s Gabe Kling and Chris Waring, Brazil’s Ricardo Santos and France’s Marc Lacomare competing to extend their life in the event and advance to the next stage of the competition.
The conditions were not ideal for surfing, with four-to-six foot waves accompanied by strong offshire winds. However, it did not seem to bother Kling too much and he scored an impressive 7.77 and 7.90 of his two waves in the final moments of the heat to
end up with a heat-total of 15.67. The score maintained his position at the top and carried him to the round of 48.
The local surfer, Santos had an advantage of possessing local knowledge of the waves, along with the support of the crowd. However, he was not able to fully capitalise on the advantage and failed to give an outstanding performance for the crowd. He scored
4.83 points off his first wave and soon followed it up with an impressive 7.17-scoring wave to finish the heat with 12.00 points. Much to the joy of the crowd, he ended up in second place and qualified for the next round.
Lacomare and Waring were not able to match up to the performances of their rivals and eventually finished in third and fourth position respectively. Waring’s performance, in particular, was really disappointing. He struggled to catch waves throughout the
heat, apparently the tough surfing conditions proving to be too much for him to handle. Both the surfers stand eliminated from the competition.
The very next heat; 12th, featured the winner of the recently concluded ASP World tour event at Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Adriano de Souza, in a battle against his compatriot Flavio Nakagima, along with Australia’s Lincoln Taylor and
South Africa’s Shaun Joubert.
Naturally, De Souza was the crowd favourite, who had high expectations from him in the heat. Unfortunately for them, he failed to live up to their expectations and finished at the bottom, i.e. fourth place, with a heat-total of 9.10 points.
The victory went to Taylor, who locked a wave in the late stages of the heat to earn 7.93 from it and immediately following it up with 5.73 points to land the first position. Nakagima also came up with a good performance, getting 7.50 and 4.23 from his two
waves respectively to finish as the runner-up.
Joubert put up a determined fight but was unable to make get past Nakagima, eventually finishing in third place. Both Joubert and De Souza have been eliminated from the competition.
For more updates on Super Surf International, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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