Joel Parkinson defeats Jordy Smith to secure Quarter-final place at Billabong Rio Pro
Australia’s Joel Parkinson got the better of South Africa’s Jordy Smith in the first heat of Billabong Rio Pro’s Round 5 that went down at the beach-break of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Tuesday, May 15.
The outcome of the bout served to earn Parkinson a spot in the Quarter-finals, whereas Smith was forced to make a premature exit from the competition.
The latest stop of the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Title Series did not get blessed with the best surfing conditions. While the barrelling conditions offered ample opportunity to the surfers to put some of the technical tricks that they had in their arsenal on display, the winds and even rain kept them from really unleashing their true skills. They had their work clearly cut out for them as they battled fellow surfing heavy-weights while doing their best to adjust to the demanding surfing conditions at hand.
The first heat of Round 5 pitted Parkinson against Smith in a battle for the Quarter-final spot. Both the surfers had faltered during their previous heats and now had one last chance to keep themselves alive in contention for the event title.
As the man-on-man bout got underway, Parkinson waited for a good wave to appear before making his charge. His patience got rewarded with a real juicy scoring opportunity, which he clinched to post a 9.33 on the score-board. He soon found another good wave and earned a 9.00 off it to reach a heat-total of 18.33 points.
“It was just one of those heats where I waited for a while and got one good one and thought ‘that could be amazing, just that one wave.’” Parkinson said. “Then I got another one. Poor Jordy [Smith] really got nothing. It was a lot like home, the good ones have a really nice draw on the water off of the bank. It’s really dumpy, so you air drop into it and it’s hard to find a rail. Who would have thought you’d come to Brazil and get two 9s getting barreled?”
Smith did not have much luck with the waves during the course of the battle. The 25-year-old South African sensation put on a determined hunt for an opportunity to score big, but came up with nothing. In the end, he had to settle for a heat-total of 7.00 points, which included a 4.67 and 2.33-point wave, thus conceding the Quarter-final spot to Parkinson.
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