Owen Wright and Jay Quinn triumph in Round 1 of 2012 Telstra Drug Aware Pro – Surfing News
Australia’s Owen Wright and New Zealand’s Jay Quinn walked away with top honours from the first round (Round of 96) of the 2012 Telstra Drug Aware Pro that kicked-off at Margaret River in Australia on Tuesday, March 20.
The successful heat carried both Wright and Quinn to the Round 2 (Round of 48) line-up. France’s Joan Duru and America’s Patrick Gudauskas also advance through into the next round after finishing in runner-up place in the first and second heat of Round 1
respectively.
The second Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime rated event of the season got together a field of top surfers from around the globe. The battles were expected to be nothing short of intense as the event site offered six-to-eight foot waves.
Wright, current No.5 on the ASP World Championship Tour rankings, put on a phenomenal performance to get the better of his compatriot Jerome Forrest, France’s Duru and French Polynesia’s Alain Riou in the first heat.
The young Australian phenom locked his first business-wave to post an 8.33 on the score-board and soon followed it up with a 7.83-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 16.16 points. With the score holding up until the end, Wright walked away with a comprehensive
victory.
“It’s a touch bigger out there so I took out my 6’5 board,” Wright said during his post-heat interview. “I was going for an air on the end section and I saw a rock right there, but I thought I could do it. Then when I landed I was almost on dry reef, I’m
lucky I didn’t knock the fins out of my board. I’m stoked with the forecast and even today it was really fun out there. It’s great to be back in Margaret River and win my heat, I lost in the first round last year.”
Duru managed to clinch runner-up place after earning a couple of scores in the five-point wave to finish with a heat-total of 11.43 points.
Forrest and Riou failed to advance through into the next round after rounding out the bottom-two positions, with the Australian surfer scoring a heat-total of 9.66 points while the latter finished with a heat-total of 6.24 points.
The second heat turned out to be a real nail-biter with both Quinn and Gudauskas pushing each other against the wall.
The Kiwi surfer drew first blood with a 7.00-point wave and added an additional 4.43 to his account in the final minutes of the heat, finishing with a heat-total of 11.43 points.
Gudauskas got off to a promising start, scoring a 5.33 off his first business-wave, but struggled to back it up with another score. Despite a desperate effort off his second business-wave in the dying minutes of the heat, he finished 0.27 points short of
the required score, consequently surrendering victory to his rival.
Australia’s Perth Standlick and France’s Maxime Huscenot got eliminated from the competition after finishing with a heat-total 9.44 and 9.10 points respectively.
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