Richard Christie and Cory Lopez clinch victory in first round of Quiksilver Pro Portugal 2011
The surfing action continued with the second and third heat of Quiksilver Pro Portugal’s round of 96 (Round 1) at the Ribera D'Ilhas beach in Ericeria, Portugal, on Tuesday, June 14th.
The second heat saw New Zealand’s Richard Christie clinch the win to advance to the second round of the competition. He was joined by Australia’s Ben Dunn, who finished in second place. Australia’s Mitchel Coleborn and Reunion’s Adrien Toyon rounded out
the third and fourth position and consequently got eliminated from the event title race.
On the other hand, America’s Cory Lopez and Northern Spain’s Aritz Aranburu clinched the first and second position respectively to stay alive in the competition and qualify for the next round. Robson Santos and Tomas Hermes, both from Brazil, got ejected
from the competition after rounding out the third and fourth positions respectively.
The surfing conditions at the main event site turned out to be decent. Even though the waves were not huge; merely three-to-four foot in height, the surfers seemed to be quite at ease while surfing them. However, there was not enough juice in the waves to
go for technical tricks, forcing the athletes to rely on the more conventional tricks in their arsenal instead.
Despite the handicap that the surfers found themselves in, New Zealand’s Christie managed to score an amazing 8.00 points off his first wave, gaining a convincing lead in the second heat of round of 96. He later followed it up with a 5.50-point wave to finish
with a heat-total of 13.50 points. Neither of his competitors were able to surpass his score, which allowed him to walk away with the top honours.
Dunn successfully extended his life in the competition by securing a second-place finish. Earning 5.83 points off his first wave and 7.00 points off his second, he finished with a two-wave total of 12.83 points.
Both Coleborn and Toyon were forced out of the competition after failing to match the performances of their rivals. The Australian ended the heat with a two-way total of 11.27, while Toyon managed 10.47 points from his two waves.
In the third heat, Lopez emerged triumphant after earning points in the six-range off both his waves. He finished with a heat-total of 12.93 points. Aranburu trailed him closely, scoring 6.60 points off his first wave. However, he couldn’t follow it up with
the required score to get past Lopez’s score and ended up finishing with a 0.40-point deficit, settling for a runner-up position instead.
It seemed as if both the Brazilians, Santos and Hermes, were unable to read the conditions properly and ended up giving rather weak performances. Santos finished with a two-wave total of 10.56 points, while his compatriot finished at the bottom with 8.27
points only. Both of them were eliminated from the event due to their unthreatening performances.
For more updates on the first round of QuikSilver Pro Portugal 2011, stay tuned to bettor.com.
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