Romain Cloitre and Nic Muscroft display deadly form in opening round of Hainan Classic
France’s Romain Cloitre and Australia’s Nic Muscroft emerged triumphant in the third and fourth heat respectively of the (Round of 64) at the inaugural Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 4-Star Hainan Classic that kicked off at the Wanning Hainan
Island in China on Wednesday, January 11.
With three-to-five foot waves gracing the event site on the opening day of the second event of Hainan Wanning Riyue Bay International Surfing Festival Presented by Quiksilver, the day promised to deliver a heavy dose of thrilling surfing action.
Cloitre adjusted extremely well to the conditions at hand and put on a solid performance to maintaining a dominant position during the third heat. Pitted against Japan’s Masatoshi Ohno, Hawaii’s Jason Shibata and his compatriot Chris Rodriguez, the Frenchman
had his work cut out for him.
However, the Cloitre took control of the heat right from the word go, locking a wave in the opening minutes to post an 8.33 on the score-board. He immediately followed it up with a 7.33-point wave to get to a heat-total of 15.66 points, which eventually
served to earn him victory.
A late effort by Ohno took him to a heat-total of 14.86 points, which proved sufficient to put him in runner-up place and thus add him to the Round 2 line-up.
Shibata finished in third place with a heat-total of 11.00 points, whereas Rodriguez ended at the bottom position after a disappointing performance, which included getting called for interference, which merely took him to a heat-total of 4.07 points. The
bottom-two finish led to the elimination of both the surfers from the competition.
The next heat of the event saw Muscroft make use of the experience that he had gained during International Surfing Association (ISA) China Cup in the previous week to clinch a comfortable win over Germany’s Marlon Lipke, Japan’s Arashi Kato and Portugal’s
Justin Mujica.
The Australian surfer opened his account with a 7.50-point wave and added a near-perfect 9.40 to his account to finish with a heat-total of 16.90 points. The score stood unbeatable until the end to eventually seal the fate of the heat in his favour and send
him through into Round 2.
Commenting on the four-man battle afterwards, Muscroft said, "I got a bit of confidence after getting through so many heats in a row [in the ISA China Cup]; I’ve never surfed so many heats in my life, so I’ve just got to keep the ball rolling. It’s bigger
so it’s got some good sections, but it’s breaking a little wide of the bank on some of them so it’s a little bit fatter, but if you get the right one it will just keeping going."
Lipke successfully kept his head from getting cut off by securing the runner-up place after finishing with a heat-total of 14.53 points, which included an 8.00 and 6.53-point wave.
Kato scored 10.90 points in total off his best-two waves to finish third, while Mujica finished in fourth place with a heat-total of 8.27 points, consequently getting removed from the contention for the event title.
The opening round of Hainan Classic was turning out to be quite a treat for the surfing fans as they witnessed the talent from all around the world giving their all to advance into the next round of the competition.
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