Gabriel Medina crushes Taylor Knox in first Semi-Final of Quiksilver Pro France – 2011 ASP World Tour
The thrilling surfing action continued at the iconic beach-break of La Graviere in France on Wednesday, October 12, with the first Semi-Final of the latest stop on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, Quiksilver Pro France, pitting
Brazil’s Gabriel Medina against America’s Taylor Knox.
The battle turned out to be one-sided, with Medina completely dominating his opponent, Knox, to clinch top honours, consequently guaranteeing himself a title shot while bringing the competition to a premature end for his rival.
The 40-year-old Knox had proved to be in an exceptional form during the latest elite tour event, getting off to a strong start and drilling through the competition to make his way smoothly into the Semi-Finals. His experience was proving to be invaluable
in the demanding surfing conditions, giving him a slight edge over his opponents throughout the event.
The 17-year-old Medina, on the other hand, was proving to be wise beyond his years and despite facing the best surfers from all around the globe, he never let his confidence waver. Even with the shifting waves on offer at the primary event site, the young
talent kept navigating his way to victories in the initial rounds. While there was a slight hiccup in his performance during the fourth round, he still made it into the Quarter-Finals after France’s Jeremy Flores failed to compete with him in the Round 5 heat
due to an ankle injury, giving the Brazilian a walk-over. Medina justified his inclusion in the Quarter-Finals line-up by defeating America’s Kelly Slater, creating one of the biggest upsets of the competition and advancing into the Semi-Finals.
As the Semi-Final battle commenced, Medina wasted no time in taking control of the heat by locking a wave to unleash a string of exquisite tricks and posting a 9.57 on the score-board. Keeping the momentum going, he went on to lock on to a barrel and unleashed
a mesmerising stunt to send both the crowd and judges in awe. Earning a perfect 10 for the superb trick, the Brazilian moved to a heat-total of 19.57 points, pretty much sealing the fate of the contest.
Despite his vast experience and huge array of skills, Knox was unable to handle his rival’s onslaught and seemed to have lost his will to fight back. He eventually locked a 6.27-point wave in the last stages of the 30-minute heat, which was apparently inadequate.
Rather than adding another decent score to his account in order to lose with a respectable margin, the American ended up getting marked for interference on the last wave and got penalised. As a result, he finished off with a heat-total of 7.00 points, losing
to Medina by a margin of 12.57 points.
While he was disappointed over his defeat in the Semi-Finals, Knox was quite happy with the way the event had turned out over-all. Talking to a reporter after the Semi-Final, the American surfer said, “This is one of the best events I've had for a while
but yeah I definitely ran into ‘Medina Airlines' there in the Semi-Finals. It's a huge result for me and I felt like my surfing was really coming together. I have some really good boards right now and I'm hoping to keep the momentum up. We're looking at maybe
getting some big barrels in Portugal next week so that will be exciting and we have a lot of interesting events to finish the year with.”
The confident victory in the Semi-Finals sent Medina through into the Final of Quiksilver Pro France, where he was to face either Australia’s Julian Wilson or South Africa’s Jordy Smith for the coveted event victory.
For updates on Semi-Final of Quiksilver Pro France, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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