Gabriel Medina and Mitch Crews advance to finals at 6-Star Sooruz Lacanau Pro
The semi-finals of Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Sooruz Lacanau Pro went down at Grande Plage in Lacanau Ocean, France, on Sunday August 21.
The first Semi-Final saw Brazil’s Gabriel Medina prevail over America’s Kolohe Andino quite comfortably to go through to the final.
Australia’s Mitch Crews clinched top honours in the second semi-final, besting his compatriot Ryan Callinan, to guarantee his place in the final.
The event site was graced by ideal surfing conditions on the final day of the competition, promising a thrilling finish to what had been an action-packed week.
Pitted against the progressive California-based Andino in the first semi-final, the 17-year-old Medina faced a daunting task of getting his hands on victory. The showdown between the two young sensations was highly anticipated, but the contest turned out
to be a rather one-sided affair, much to the dismay of the crowd who were expecting an intense battle.
In the opening minutes of the battle, the scales tilted in Medina’s favour as his opponent received an interference call from the judges and got penalised. Andino failed to recover from the handicap and also seemed to have lost the will to fight after the
interference call. In the end, he finished with a heat-total of 8.65 points.
Medina comfortably took the win over his rival, finishing with a heat-total of 14.77 points, to advance to the Final.
The second Semi-Final pitted the 21-year-old Crews against his countryman, Callinan. Since the very start of the battle, the 19-year-old Callinan struggled to get his momentum going. He kept hunting for a good wave desperately, but his luck seemed to have
bailed on him. Eventually, he had to settle for a heat-total of 8.67 points.
On the other hand, Crew was having a much better luck with the waves and was successfully making the most out of them. He locked a couple of really good waves to reach a heat-total of 14.10 points, which carried him off to victory and secured his place in
the final.
Callinan was disappointed with his performance, but was not hesitant to admit that his rival had actually deserved to win. Talking to a reporter, he said, “I was really struggling out there. It’s really hard it was like in between tides again, breaking way
out back and then in the inside sometimes. I just couldn’t find any good insiders. Mitch [Crews] surfed well and he got the best waves so he deserved to get through.”
Crews would be facing Medina in the final battle for the 6-Star Sooruz Lacanau Pro.
For updates on the final of ASP 6-Star Sooruz Lacanau Pro, stay tuned to bettor.com
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