Heath Joske and Jano Belo gain victory in Round 3 of Mr. Price Pro Ballito
The ninth and tenth heat of Mr. Price Pro Ballito’s Round of 24 (Round 3) went down at the Surfers Beach in Ballito, South Africa, on Thursday, July 7th.
Australia’s Heath Joske was responsible for creating the biggest upset of the day by eliminating Brazil’s Gabriel Medina in the ninth heat, consequently advancing to the next round while eliminating his rival from the competition.
The 10th heat saw Brazil’s Jano Belo defeat New Zealand’s Richard Christie in what turned out to be an intense nail-biting contest to secure one of the remaining Round of 12 (Round 4) slots on offer, while ejected his competitor from the event
title race.
Medina has been making waves in surfing competitions for almost a year now and is regarded as one of the most intimidating names in the recent army of Brazilian surfers who have emerged and began to take over competitive surfing. Even during the current
Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event, he had made a solid impact during the first-two rounds.
Despite being high on confidence, the ASP World No. 17 surfer was outperformed by Joske during the ninth heat. The Australian got off to an amazing start, locking the first wave that came his way to score an outstanding 8.83 points of it and putting his
rival under pressure. Medina responded with a non-threatening 4.33 wave.
Half-way through the heat, Joske added another 6.67 to his account to climb to a heat-total of 15.50 points. The Brazilian now required 8.33 points to clinch, but only managed to earn 4.00 off his final wave and ended up surrendering the Round 4 slot to
the Australian.
While talking to a reporter after the heat, Joske said, “Gabriel has been on fire all year and he’s an amazing surfer so I was really nervous going into that heat. That first wave was a real boost and I’m glad I went through. This is my best result this
year.”
Brazil may have lost Medina, but Belo was still going strong for his country. Pitted against New Zealand’s Christie in the 10th heat, Belo seemed to be heading towards defeat after his rival started things off with a marvellous 9.27-point wave
to move way ahead on the scoreboard and later adding 5.67 points to his account.
However, Belo rose up to the challenge in the later stage of the heat, scoring 7.17 points off his first wave and then getting a critical 8.00-point wave to get to a heat-total of 15.17 points and stay in contention for the event-title.
“It was a tight heat, when I saw Richard’s big barrel I thought that was ten points,” Belo said while talking to a reporter after the heat. “I was lucky the judges seemed to like my turns and my last turn was huge so I knew it was going to be a high score.”
With the conclusion of heat 10, only two more battles for survival remained in the round of 24.
For updates on Round 3 of Mr. Price Pro Ballito, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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