Gabriel Medina and John John Florence triumphant in Round 4 of Quiksilver Pro Portugal 2011
The final 12 surfers faced each other off for the coveted quarter-final slot in Quiksilver Pro Portugal’s fourth round (Round of 12) on Friday morning, June 17th, at the beach-break of Ribeira D’Ilhas in Ericeira, Portugal.
Round 4 was a non-elimination round, with the winner advancing directly to the quarter-finals, while the second and third place finishers would have to battle for survival in Round 5.
Brazil’s Gabriel Medina emerged triumphant in the first heat of the latest round to directly jump into the quarter-finals. America’s Cory Lopez finished second, while Brazil’s Junior Faria finished third.
In the second heat, Hawaii’s John John Florence walked away with top honours after prevailing over America’s Patrikc Gudauskas and France’s Jeremy Flores, leaving them to finish in second and third positions respectively.
While the waves breaking at the primary event site were not that bad, the low tides and strong onshore winds did present the surfers with some challenge. However, it was nothing that the surfers were not capable of handling, especially after surfing in much
worse conditions in the previous rounds and still managing to come up with decent performances.
As the first heat kicked off, Medina immediately got down to business, locking a wave to earn 8.00 points and moving into the lead. He soon added another impressive score of 7.67 to finish with a two-wave total of 15.67 points. The score remained unbeatable
to carry him off to success.
Lopez and Faria were unable to stay at par with their rival’s excellent performance. While the American scored 5.17 and 5.90 off his two best waves, the Brazilian finished with a heat total of 9.37 points to finish last. Both the surfers found themselves
heading to Round 5 to stay alive in the competition.
The second heat turned out to be a one-man show as Florence comfortably downed his competition to smoothly sail to victory. He caught a wave early in the battle to earn 8.67 points to move into the lead and soon added an additional 8.00 to his account to
climb to a heat-total of 16.67 points.
Gudauskas, who had looked extremely threatening over the last few days, was unable to rise up to the challenge and settled for second position after scoring 4.37 and 6.93 points off his two waves to finish with a heat-total of 11.30 points.
Flores, who was also being considered among the strongest contenders for the event title, faltered during the battle to finish with a disappointing two-wave total of 8.77 points.
The American and French surfers were forced into Round 5 to compete for a quarter-final slot.
For more updates on Round 4 of Quiksilver Pro Portugal 2011, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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