Gabriel Medina bows out to Peterson Crisanto in Round 2 of Billabong Rio Pro – Surfing News
Brazil’s Peterson Crisanto was successful in extending his life in Billabong Rio Pro, the third of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, after getting the better of Brazil’s Gabriel Medina in the opening heat of Round
2 that went down at the main event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, May 14.
The battle delivered the biggest upset of the day as Crisanto’s victory over Medina eliminated the latter from the competition.
“I knew that heat wasn’t going to be easy with Gabriel [Medina] so I just tried to stay on the rights and try and find the barrels,” Crisanto said. “I almost made the first barrel, but I made the second one, so I’m happy to get through to the next round.
I just tried to stay relaxed and find the right waves.”
The latest stop on the ASP elite tour got done with its first round at the alternate event venue of Arpoador on Wednesday before going on hold in order to wait for the conditions to improve. After a long wait, the primary event site began to offer conditions
that were deemed decent enough by the event organisers to put the surfers back in the sea for the second round.
The 18-year-old Medina had made some serious waves during the last few months of the previous ASP World Tour season and was looking in a formidable form since the start of the current season. With the ASP World Tour bringing the elite ASP surfers to Brazil
for the third stop, it seemed that the young sensation may very well go all the way.
Pitted against Medina in the opening heat of the elimination round, Crisanto clearly had his work cut out for him. Rather than succumbing to the pressure of going against such an intimidating competitor, the 19-year-old Crisanto focused on the barrelling
right-handers. He scored a 3.00 off his first business-wave and added an additional 7.83 points to his account in the dying minutes of the heat to reach a heat-total of 10.83 points.
Medina struggled with the thumping waves and only managed to collect a 3.00 and 4.17 off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 7.17 points. As a result, he was forced to concede victory to his rival.
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