Mick Fanning prevails over Michel Bourez to enter Billabong Rio Pro Quarter-finals
Australia’s Mick Fanning took a comprehensive win over French Polynesia’s Michel Bourez in the second heat of Billabong Rio Pro’s Round 5 that went down at the main event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Tuesday, May 15.
The fate of the battle served to take Fanning through into the Quarter-finals, while bringing the competition to a premature end for Bourez.
The surfing conditions prevailing at the primary event site throughout the third stop of the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour had not exactly been ideal. The three-to-five foot barrels on offer on Tuesday did present plenty of scoring
opportunities, but the winds and rain did not make it easy for the surfers to capitalise on the chances completely. They were pushed to their limits during their battles for survival in the contention for the event title.
Fanning, the former two-time ASP World Champion, had arrived at Brazil in an intimidating form. The Australian surfing icon had done quite well to adjust to the challenging surfing conditions. A stumble in Round 4 had sent him into the relegation Round 5
to take the longer route to the Quarter-finals.
Pitted against Fanning in a battle for the Quarter-final spot was Bourez. The Tahiti charger had been quite impressive during the previous rounds of the competition as well and was expected to give his Australian rival a tough time during their clash.
As the second heat of Round 5 kicked-off, Fanning got off to a modest start, collecting a series of ordinary scores. However, he stepped up in the final minutes of the heat. Locking his first business-wave, he unloaded a string of exquisite tricks to post
a 7.50 on the score-board and immediately backed it up with a 6.50-point ride to move to a heat-total of 14.00 points.
Bourez did not look too comfortable during the course of the man-on-man battle. The French Polynesia-based surfer only managed to collect a couple of scores in the three-point range off his best-two waves to eventually finish with a heat-total of 7.20 points.
As a result, he was forced to concede victory and thus the Quarter-final spot to Fanning, sending his rival through into the next stage of Billabong Rio Pro.
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