Julian Wilson and Aritz Aranburu win their heats: First round of Super Surf International – Part 3
Regardless of what some of the surfer had to say, the surfing conditions in Santa Catarina were definitely not ideal during the first round of Super Surf International on Tuesday. Even under such demanding conditions, the crowd were entertained to some thrilling
battles between some of most talented surfers from all across the globe.
Australia’s in-form surfer, Julian Wilson, squared off with South Africa’s Dale Staples, Brazil’s Hizonume Bettero and his compatriot, Pablo Paulino in the fifth heat.
Wilson was the favourite to win the heat and he successfully lived up to the expectations. His best waves came in the final moments of the heat, with 6.10 points off his first wave and 8.93 points off his second, to finish with a heat-total of 15.03.
Talking to a reporter after the heat, the Australian surfer said, “I thought the waves were really good and long. Perfect with excellent conditions today. I needed a good score and I found that left which was basically my only good one of the heat, but its
fine because I qualified into the next round.”
Bettero put up a struggle to keep the Australian from clinching victory, but his efforts turned out to be in vain. He scored 5.33 points off his first wave and immediately followed with a 6.50 wave to finish in second place with a score of 11.83. The valiant
effort under the testing conditions rewarded him with a place in the next round of the competition along with Wilson.
Staples and Paulino failed to put up a satisfactory performance and ended up rounding out the third and fourth position respectively, consequently getting eliminated from the fifth Prime event of the year.
The sixth heat of the day saw the surfer from Basque Country, Aritz Aranburu, battle it out with South Africa’s Travis Logie, America’s Eric Geiselman and French Polynesia’s Alain Riou.
The heat turned out to be a low scoring one, as it became increasingly difficult to ride the surfs due to the offshore winds. However, Aranburu still managed to somehow get two decent scores in later stages of the heat to put himself ahead of the competition.
He locked the first wave to score 5.23 off it and then got 4.80 off his second to finish with a total of 10.03 points. The score, although a little inadequate on first glance, eventually remained unbeatable and confirmed his place in the next round.
Logie opened his account with a score of 4.40 and required 5.63 off his second wave to take the lead. Unfortunately for him, his second best wave came in the final moments of the heat and it did not earn him sufficient points. He had to settle for second
place with a two-wave score of 8.13.
Geiselman and Riou finished the heat in third and fourth place respectively. While Geiselman was seen to put up some fight, missing out on the second position due to a deficit of only 0.03 points, the French Polynesian, Riou completely succumbed to the challenging
conditions and only managed to surf two waves, scoring 7.10 points off them in total. Both the surfers have been eliminated from the Super Surf international.
For more updates on the first day of Super Surf International, stay tuned to bettor.com.
Tags: