Lakey Peterson and Cannelle Bulard qualify for fourth round of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro
The first heat of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro’s third round, the round of 24, went down at the Praia do Guincho beach in Estoril, Portugal, on Saturday, June 11th.
America’s Lakey Peterson managed to clinch a convincing victory in the four-way battle to book her place in the next round of the competition. Reunion’s Cannelle Bulard finished in second place and qualified for the round of 12 as well.
France’s Alizee Arnaud and Australia’s Brittani Nicholl failed to make a solid impact in the heat and ended up rounding out the third and fourth positions respectively, consequently getting eliminated from the event title race.
While a warm weather and sunny sky welcomed the surfers on Saturday, the joy was short lived once the conditions of the waves were assessed. Two-to-three foot waves were breaking at the primary event site, along with cross-shore winds adding up to the challenge
of surfing those waves. There was no juice in the waves, forcing the ladies to resort to more conventional tricks instead of showing off the technical manoeuvres in their bag.
The American surfer, Peterson, was not daunted by the demanding conditions and met the challenge head on. As the heat kicked off, she immediately got down to business, opening her account with an excellent wave, earning 8.00 for the little show that she
put on while surfing the wave.
Almost half-way through the heat, Peterson locked another good wave to earn an impressive 7.00 points, moving to a heat-total of 15.00. The score stood its ground till the end and eventually carried Peterson off to victory, along with qualifying her for
the round of 12.
Bulard took second place after failing to come up with an impressive response to her American rival’s rampage. She earned 6.00 off her first wave and soon moved to 11.60 points after earning 5.60 points from her second wave. The result was pretty satisfying
for her considering she successfully qualified for the next round as well.
Arnaud and Nicholl remained unimpressive during the heat, apparently finding it hard to adjust to the conditions and struggling to find their rhythm. While the French surfer finished with a final score of 7.90 off her two waves to secure the third position,
the Australian surfer finished at the bottom with 7.55 points in total. Both of them were eliminated from the competition due to the weak performances and bottom-two finish.
Estoril Surf and Music Billabong Girls Pro continued to treat the intense surfing battles on the second day, i.e. Saturday.
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