Kelly Slater downs Gabriel Medina to claim Volcom Fiji Pro Title – Surfing News
America’s Kelly Slater took out the Volcom Fiji Pro, fourth of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Championship Tour, after getting the bettering of Brazil’s Gabriel Medina in the Final that went down at the main venue
of Cloudbreak in Tavarua, Fiji, on Monday, June 11.
The latest success served to carry the 40-year-old Florida-based surfer to the No.2 spot on the 2012 ASP World Title rankings, placing him just below former two-time World Champion Mick Fanning from Australia.
Returning from an ankle injury that had forced him to miss the Brazilian stop on the elite tour, Slater did not get off to the most ideal start at Fiji. In the very first round of the competition, he suffered a defeat to get relegated to the second round.
Bouncing back strongly, the reigning World Champion quickly made everyone forget his sluggish start with a series of epic performances, which featured everything from perfect scores to mind-boggling manoeuvres.
Medina, on the other hand, was nothing short of stunning over the week as well. The young Brazilian had failed to live up to the hype during the last three events, but shone brightly at the latest event, taking down the best surfers from around the world
to reach the Final.
Last year, Slater and Medina had met each other in the finals on a number of occasions, with the latter leaving the ASP World Champion flabbergasted. With the current form of both the surfers, it was expected to be yet another epic match-up.
As the Final got underway, Slater took no chances and pulled out all his guns from the word go. By the time the heat reached its halfway stage, the Floridian surfer had already reached a heat-total of 18.16 points, courtesy of an 8.33 and near-perfect 9.83-point
ride.
Medina had a tough task at hand of hunting for a couple of huge scores to challenge his rival’s mammoth-sized heat-total. Despite his determined efforts, the Brazilian powerhouse only managed to collect an 8.60 and 2.27 off his best-two waves to end up with
a heat-total of 10.87 points. After a long wait, Slater had finally managed to add Medina to his list of victims.
“It’s about time I got him,” Slater said. “He had my number in the back half of last year and he’ll probably go on to beat everyone for the next 20 years. He can do it all and I think he proved that to a lot of people this week at Restaurants and out here
at Cloudbreak.”
Despite not doing as good in the Final as he had hoped, Medina conceded that he was satisfied with the result. He further congratulated the reigning ASP World Champion, admitting that Slater had indeed been on a roll through the course of the event.
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