Paige Hareb and Leila Hurst move into ASP 6-Star Swatch Girls Pro France semi-finals
New Zealand Paige Hareb and Hawaii’s Leila Hurst emerged triumphant in their respective Quarter-finals at the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Swatch Girls Pro France that went down at the primary event site of Les Bourdaines in Seignosse,
France, on Saturday, June 2.
Hareb got the better of Hawaii’s Alana Blanchard in the third Quarter-final to advance through into the semi-final stage, removing the latter from the contention for the event title in the process.
France’s Alizee Arnaud bowed out to Hurst in the fourth Quarter-final, consequently finding herself eliminated from the competition while sending her rival through into the next stage of the competition.
Some of the best female talent from around the globe had converged to France to compete against each other in high-performance surfing conditions. The event organisers were not ready to make any compromise on the size of waves and thus kept the action on
hold on Friday to run the final day of the competition in perfect two-to-three foot wind affected waves. The stage was all set for an exciting finish to what had been a week full of memorable performances and adrenaline-pumping action.
The third Quarter-final saw Hareb square-off with Blanchard for the semi-final spot. As the battle got underway, both the surfers took their time to warm up to the conditions. Hareb gradually built momentum by collect a series of average wave scores before
stepping up to post a 6.00 on the score-board. She soon followed it up with a 4.60-point ride to get to a heat-total of 10.60 points.
Blanchard continued to struggle with her rhythm throughout the course of the battle, managing to score a mere 2.60 and 5.00 off her best-two waves to eventually finish with a heat-total of 7.60 points. The lacklustre performance forced her to surrender victory
and thus the semi-final spot to her rival.
The second Quarter-final featured an impressive performance by Hurst as she faced-off with Arnaud in a one-on-one battle for the semi-final spot. She did not get off to the most confident of starts, but exhibited strong determination halfway through the
heat. Catching her first business-wave halfway through the heat, she unloaded a series of exquisite turns to post a 7.90 on the score-board and immediately backed it up with a 5.60-point ride to finish with a heat-total of 13.50 points.
Arnaud collected a couple of scores in the four-point range to finish with a combined wave-score of 8.75 points, 4.75 points short of the required score. As a result, she found herself ejected from the contention for the event title, while sending Hurst
into the next stage of the competition.
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