Nikita Robb advances to round three of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro
South Africa’s Nikita Robb clinched victory in the third heat of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro’s second round that took place at the beach-break of Praia do Guincho in Estoril, Portugal, on Friday, June 10th.
Robb was up against a talented trio, which comprised of her compatriot Tanika Hoffman, Reunion Island’s Cannelle Bulard and Lore Eizaguirre from the northern region of Spain.
The contest between the four ladies went down under difficult surfing conditions, with two-to-three foot tides and offshore winds prevailing at the primary event site. It was not easy to surf waves under such demanding conditions, which got even more apparent
after witnessing the surfers struggle to hold their own in the sea. Technical tricks were substituted for more conventional ones as the waves and wind refused to let the female show-off their innovative manoeuvres and brought their experience and perseverance
into spotlight instead.
Robb managed to land her first good score half-way through the heat. She locked a wave to execute a couple of tricks to earn 5.75 points for the effort. She immediately followed it up with a 5.00-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 10.75 points. The
score, while seemingly inadequate, proved to be sufficient to grant her the win and carried her off to the next round of the competition.
Bulard tried to put up a fight to keep the South African from walking away with victory, but it turned out to be in vain. His first good wave came in the later stages of the heat and earned him a score of 4.40. He followed it up with 4.15-point wave to finish
with 8.55 points, consequently missing out on victory by a 2.20-point deficit. He was, however, not disappointed with the way things turned out as the runner-up result confirmed his place in the next round.
Hoffman and Eizaguirre completely succumbed to the difficult surfing conditions and ended up giving a poor performance during the heat. Neither of them was able to find their rhythm and evidently struggled to execute a trick cleanly. The South African, Hoffman,
took third place with a two-wave score of 5.40, while the Basque Country-native, Eizaguirre, finished at the bottom with 4.65 points. The bottom-two finish resulted in their elimination from the competition.
Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro is an Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star event which is bound to play an integral role in determining the outcome of the race for ASP Women’s European title.
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