Gabriel Medina emerges triumphant in Round 1 of Rip Curl Pro Portugal – 2011 ASP World Tour
The crowd kept getting treated to a heavy dose of thrilling surfing battles at the latest stop of the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, Rip Curl Pro Portugal, with the eighth heat of Round 1 featuring a showdown between Brazil’s
Gabriel Medina, his compatriot Raoni Monteiro and crowd-favourite, Tiago Pires, for the Round 3 spot at the beach-break of Supertubos in Peniche, Portugal, on Sunday, October 16.
The battle turned out to be pretty intense, but it was the young Medina who eventually came through to secure his place in the Round 3 line-up. Monteiro was forced to settle for runner-up place, while Pires rounded out the third place, much to the disappointment
of the crowd. Both the surfers got relegated to Round 2 as a result.
The surfing conditions at the primary event site had been pretty bad on Sunday morning, keeping the event on hold. However, Mother Nature decided to bless Supertubos with clean three-to-five foot waves by afternoon, allowing the officials to get on with
the first round of Rip Curl Pro Portugal.
The waves carried enough juice to allow the surfers to go for the more advanced manoeuvres in their arsenal and earn big scores. This in turn raised the intensity of the battles, with the surfer giving their all to prevail over their rivals in order to jump
directly into Round 3.
The eighth heat of Round 1 did not turn out to be any different in this regard, with Monteiro, Medina and Pires fighting hard for waves and hunting with determination for good scores.
Coming straight from a maiden victory in Quiksilver Pro France, the 17-year-old Medina managed to prove his mettle once again during his first heat of Rip Curl Pro Portugal’s Round 1. He wasted no time in making it quite clear that he meant business by locking
a wave in the opening minutes of the heat to unload a string of impressive stunts and posting 9.07 points on the score-board. A few minutes later, he added another 8.80 points to his account and consequently finished the heat with a two-wave total of 17.87
points. The score proved to be too much for his opponents to beat and eventually carried him off to victory, thus putting him in the Round 3 line-up.
Commenting on the heat afterwards, Medina said, “We were all battling for waves out there. At one point, Raoni [Monteiro] got his arm caught in my leash. That’s competition though. We’re all hungry for the win. The waves are really fun out there. I had two
really good ones and I’m happy with the win.”
Monteiro got off to a promising start, collecting 7.33 off his first business-wave, but failed to follow it up with another competitive score and only managed to add an additional 5.57 points to his account. He consequently finished with a heat-total of
12.90 points, which earned him the runner-up place and sent him into Round 2.
The ‘Portuguese Tiger’, Pires, failed to put smiles on the local crowd after coming up an extremely disappointing performance. Scoring 2.00 points off his first while getting marked for interference on his last wave, he finished off with a heat-total of
2.79 points. Relegated to Round 2 as a result of a lacklustre Round 1 performance, Pires found himself in need of a successful Round 2 in order to remain in contention for the event-title.
For more updates on Round 1 of Rip Curl Pro Portugal, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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