Lakey Peterson triumphs over Dimity Stoyle in Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro quarter-finals
The second quarter-final of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro went down at the Praia do Guincho beach in Estoril, Portugal, on Saturday afternoon, June 11th.
After an intense battle, it was America’s Lakey Peterson who managed to emerge triumphant from the heat, bringing Australia’s Dimity Stoyle’s title pursuit to a premature end.
Both surfers had remained pretty impressive on Friday and had continued to show good form on Saturday morning as well. The surfing conditions at the primary event site were nothing to feel relaxed about, with merely two-foot waves breaking at the beach,
and those too were accompanied by strong cross shore winds. The waves did not have enough juice in them either, which deprived the ladies off the opportunity to go for the technical tricks and rely on the more conventional manoeuvres instead.
The impact of the not-so-ideal surfing conditions were felt by both Peterson and Stoyle during their battle for the coveted semi-final slot. However, neither of them really had any option but to make an effort to adjust to the conditions and try to come
up with the best possible tricks under the given circumstances.
As the heat kicked off, Peterson got right down to business and caught a wave to score 5.00 points off it to move into the lead. She continued to retain the lead for a while, but then Stoyle responded with a good wave of her own, moving one point ahead of
the American.
With the time running out, both the ladies kept on hunting for another good score. Peterson eventually locked a wave, executing a few turns on it cleanly to earn 5.15 points and moving to a two-wave total of 10.15 points. This left the Australian in need
of 4.16 points to clinch victory. However, her second wave did not get her enough points and she ended up 0.35 points short of the win.
Peterson could not have hoped for a better result, considering the demanding surfing conditions and the challenge in coping with them. One may even call her lucky for qualifying for the semi-finals with a score as low as 10.15. It would be interesting to
see how she performs in her next heat and whether she managed to read the conditions better than she read in the quarter-finals.
The ASP 6-Star Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro is the fifth of seven stops on 2011 ASP Women’s Star Tour and second of four stops on ASP Women’s European title race.
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