Gabe Kling and Tiago Pires move into the finals at Islas Canarias Santa Pro
America’s Gabe Kling defeated his compatriot Nathaniel Curran in the first semi-final, whereas Portugal’s Tiago Pires bested Brazil’s Willian Cardoso in the second semi-final of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Islas Canarias Santa Pro,
which continued at the main break of San Juan in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, on Friday, October 26, 2012.
Both the winners consequently advanced to the final to face-off for the over-all win, whereas Curran and Cardoso were forced to leave the contention for the event title due to their failure to hold their own in their respective semi-final battles.
The shifting two-to-three foot waves breaking at the primary event site promised plenty of thrilling action as the demanding conditions on hand kept the surfers from cutting loose and being forced to work really hard to get their hands on a couple of good
scores.
After looking solid over the last few days, both Kling and Curran found themselves taking each other on in a man-on-man battle, with the fate of their battle to determine which of the two was going to be taking a shot at the title.
As the battle got underway, Kling wasted very little time to pounce into action. Going through a series of average scores, the American surfer locked a juicy wave to squeeze a 7.83 off it, thus taking the lead.
He later added a near-perfect 9.67 to his account, which took him to a heat-total of 17.50 points.
Curran was tasked with beating a real challenging score in demanding conditions, which he failed to do after earning a mere 4.83 and 6.77 off his best-two waves for a heat-total of 11.60 points. However, he remained graceful in his defeat and considered
an equal third finish as a great accomplishment.
“I’m stoked,” Curran said. “It feels good to get a little result at the end, I haven’t done too many events, I’m having fun. I was in France before this, just having a good time and I think that’s what makes me happy and makes me earn the results. It was
fun out there with Gabe, it was kind of tricky conditions, he got the two clean set waves, I waited quite a while and didn’t get one. But yeah it was fun and I’m stoked with the result and stoked for Gabe.”
The second semi-final turned out to be a one-man show, with Pires completely dominating Cardoso with an onslaught that would have probably brought even the best surfers in the world to their knees.
The Portuguese powerhouse got off to an energetic start, but it was not until the final moments of the heat when he really went on a rampage, scoring a 9.83 and 9.90 in quick succession to finish with a heat-total of 19.73 points.
Cardoso tried to put up a fight, but his scores of 7.40 and 6.70 for a two-wave total of 14.10 points hardly put pressure on his rival. The 26-year-old consequently had to settle for an equal third finish.
Tags: