Olamana Eleogram and Mark Occhilupo earn place in 2012 Telstra Drug Aware Pro Semi-finals
Hawaii’s Olamana Eleogram and Australia’s Mark Occhilupo made their way into the Semi-finals of the 2012 Telstra Drug Aware Pro after clinching a successful result in their respective Quarter-finals that ran at Margaret River in Western Australia on Saturday,
March 24.
Eleogram took a comprehensive victory over Australia’s Josh Kerr in the first Quarter-final, whereas Occhilupo got the better of Australia’s Tom Whitaker in the second Quarter-final to advance through into the next stage of the competition.
The latest Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime rated event promised a lot of thrilling action as some of the biggest names of surfing had decided to participate in the event. The surfing conditions were quite promising, tempting the surfers
to test out their skills against their fellow elite surfers. It had turned out to be a thrilling week so far at Margaret River and the action was far from over yet.
As 2012 Telstra Drug Aware Pro resumed on Saturday, Eleogram found himself taking on Kerr in the first Quarter-final. The clean three-to-foot waves on offer presented plenty of opportunity to both the surfers to collect big scores, though Kerr struggled
to find his rhythm throughout the entirety of the contest and thus failed to offer any resistance as his Hawaiian rival walked away with a comfortable win.
Eleogram scored a 7.00 off his first business-wave in the opening minutes of the heat and added another 7.83 points to his account in the dying minutes to finish the battle with a heat-total of 14.83 points.
Kerr, on the other hand, only managed to find a couple of scores in the one-point range to finish with a two-wave total of 2.34 points. The lacklustre performance led to his elimination from the competition.
The second Quarter-final turned out to be much more intense, with the 1999 ASP World Champion Mark Occhilupo battling it out with an in-form Whitaker for a place in the Semi-final. The latter had created the biggest upset of the event by eliminating the
American surfer Kelly Surfer to reach the Quarter-finals and was expected to make the most of the confidence gained.
As the heat started, Whitaker got off to a promising start, scoring a 7.33 off his first business-wave and immediately backed it up with an 8.70-point wave to get to a heat-total of 16.03 points.
Despite an impressive performance, he was unable to stop Occhilupo from getting hold of victory. The latter went on a rampage during the 30-minute showdown, finding a 9.63 and 8.00-point ride to finish the heat with a two-wave total of 17.63 points. As a
result, he moved into the next stage of the competition while Whitaker was forced to say goodbye to his chances of winning the event-title.
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