Patrick Gudauskas defeats John John Florence to win Mr. Price Pro Ballito 2011 title
After featuring six days of intense surfing action, Mr. Price Pro Ballito reached the grand finale on Saturday, July 9th, at Surfers Beach in Ballito, South Africa.
America’s Patrick Gudauskas managed to triumph over Hawaii’s John John Florence to clinch the title in the latest Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event. This was the first ASP Prime event victory of Gudauskas’ career and moved him from the
27th rank on the ASP World Rankings to 15th.
In 2009, Gudauskas’ brother Tanner had won the event and brought the title home. After a hiatus of two years, the Gudauskas family once again made their country proud by raising the American flag in Ballito.
The final battle between the 25-year-old American and Florence was expected to be a real epic as both the surfers were evidently in excellent form and the surfing conditions at the primary event site were also ideal for a high-intensity showdown.
In the early minutes of the heat, Gudauskas locked a wave to throw down a string of lip bashes and critical floaters on a huge eight-to-ten foot wave, earning an impressive 7.17 for the effort from the judges. Later in the battle, he pulled off a huge air-drop
floater to add an additional 4.67 points to his account and finished with a heat-total of 11.84 points.
Talking to the media after the final, the American surfer said, “I just got lucky in the final. John John was the man to beat at this event and it was a tough heat. I went for turns while he was looking for barrels and I think he would have ‘smoked’ me,
had he found one!”
While expectations were high from the Hawaiian surfer, he failed to live up to them. His two best waves earned him a 4.00 and 4.03 to take him to a heat-total of 8.03 points. This was definitely not the sort of performance that his fans were expecting from
him after witnessing his previous performances, which included the highest heat score of the event, 19.40, just a few hours earlier in the quarter-finals.
During his post-final interview, Florence said, “It was really hard, the wind came up and I was tired but I’m really stoked for Pat. This morning was so fun, the waves were perfect and clean and there were a lot of barrels. I just kept getting lucky and
getting into the good ones, it was a lot of fun.”
The second place finish in the latest ASP Prime event moved the Hawaiian up to World No. 39 from his previous ranking of 49.
With the fate of Mr. Price Pro Ballito sealed, the surfers will now head to America for the eighth ASP Prime event of the year, NIKE US Open of Surfing, which is scheduled to kick off from August 1st.
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