Hairil Anwar and Taishi Kawabata claim victory in Round 1 of CHIKO Pro Junior – Surfing News
Indonesia’s Hairil Anwar and Japan’s Taishi Kawabata walked away with top from Round 1 (Round of 112) of CHIKO Pro Junior at Newcastle’s Surfest that went down at Merewether in New South Wales, Australia, on Thursday, March 8.
The opening day of the latest Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 4-Star Men’s Junior Qualifying event was welcomed by six-foot waves, presenting the relatively inexperienced surfers with a challenging swell to adjust to.
With young surfers from around the globe gathering at the event site to compete for the $20,000 prize as well as the coveted ASP Junior rating points, the stage was set for an exciting contest.
The first heat of the competition pitted Anwar against France’s Maxime Huscenot, Australia’s Jamai Evans and his compatriot Matt Williams.
The battle for top honours during the first heat of Round 1 turned out to be pretty intense. All four surfers struggled to adjust to the conditions throughout the course of the heat.
The Indonesia-based Anwar eventually managed to post a couple of relatively decent scores on the score-board to finish with a heat-total of 9.15 points The score held up until the end to seal the fate of the battle in his favour, consequently carrying him
through into the next round.
Huscenot had little luck with the waves as well but still managed to extend his life in the event by getting to a heat-total of 7.80 points. The modest performance proved to be enough to put him in runner-up place.
Evans and Williams failed to make use of their local knowledge of the waves and finished in third and fourth place respectively, getting to an identical two-wave total of 7.10 points. Both the surfers were consequently eliminated from the competition.
The second heat saw relatively bigger scores appearing on the score-board with Japan’s Kawabata getting to a heat-total of 11.35 points to claim the win and thus advance through into Round 2 (Round of 96).
Australia’s Tylah Hutchinson finished behind Kawabata in second place with a two-wave total of 9.35 points, getting a place in the second round of the competition as a result.
Brazil’s Sidney Guimaraes finished third with a heat-total of 9.00 points, while Australia’s Luke Gyory rounded out the fourth position with 2.10 points.
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