Patrick Gudauskas overcomes Damien Hobgood to reach Round 3 of Billabong Rio Pro
America’s Patrick Gudauskas advanced through into the third round of Billabong Rio Pro, the third of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Title Series, after getting the better of his fellow countryperson Damien Hobgood
in the fifth heat of Round 2 that took place at Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, May 14.
The failure to clinch a successful result in the elimination round led to the removal of Hobgood from the contention for the event title.
The event organisers had shifted to the alternative venue of Arpoador on day 1 of the competition to get done with the first round. However, the conditions had not turned out to be as good as they had expected and thus they decided to keep the second round
on hold until the quality of the waves improved. The wait finally came to an end on Monday, with four-to-six foot barrels breaking at the primary event site. The stage seemed to be set for the delivery of a heavy dose of enthralling action as the world’s best
surfers got ready to take each other on in a battle for survival.
The fifth heat of Round 2 pitted Gudauskas against Hobgood in a man-on-man battle for the Round 3 spot. Both the surfers had faltered during the Round 1 heat at Arpoador and therefore stood on the edge. Neither of the two could settle for anything less than
victory if they wished to remain in contention for the event title.
As the fifth heat got underway, both the surfers got off to a slow start. The barrelling right-handers proved to be quite challenging for them, consequently keeping them on the back-foot.
Near the mid-stage of the heat, Gudauskas locked his first business-wave to collect a 4.33 off it, thus grabbing the lead. He soon backed it up with a 5.50-point ride to move to a heat-total of 9.83 points.
Hobgood did not look too comfortable during the course of the 30-minute battle either. Despite a long and desperate hunt, he only managed to collect a couple of scores in the three-point range off his best-two waves to finish with a heat-total of 7.46 points.
The effort was not good enough to get him past his rival’s modest heat-total and thus led to his elimination from the competition while sending Gudauskas into the next round.
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