Round 1 of Billabong Rio Pro finds Mick Fanning in a solid form – Surfing News
Australia’s Mick Fanning jumped straight into the third round of the Billabong Rio Pro, the third of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, after putting on an exquisite performance to clinch victory in the ninth heat
of Round 1 that went down at the alternate venue of Arpoador in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday, May 9.
South Africa’s Travis Logie finished in second place, whereas America’s Damien Hobgood was forced to settle for third place. Both the surfers consequently got relegated to the second round to surf again for a Round 3 spot.
The shift to Arpoador from the main event site of Barra da Tijuca worked out in favour of the competition, giving surfers clean two-to-four foot waves to put their stylish and smooth surfing skills on display, much to the delight of the fans. Competing at
the greatest stage of surfing, ASP World Tour, the surfers knew that they could not afford to give anything less than 100 percent and fortunately the surfing conditions prevailing at the secondary event site aided them in doing just that.
The ninth heat of Round 1 pitted Fanning against Logie and Hobgood in a three-man battle for a direct ticket to Round 3 without having to surf in Round 2.
Fanning, two-time ASP World Champion and current No.3 on the ASP World Title rankings, had collected an overall victory at Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach and was thus expected to be high on confidence.
The Australian surfer displayed this confidence during his first heat at the latest stop of the elite tour. Taking only a few minutes to launch into a series of exquisite manoeuvres, Fanning posted an 8.67 on the score-board to grab an early lead. After
a long and busy search, he added another 7.67 points to his account to get to a heat-total of 16.34 points. The score did not receive any significant threat throughout the course of the three-man bout and thus served to earn him the win.
Logie caused a bit of an alarm for Fanning after scoring an 8.10 off his first business-wave, but a failure to back it up with another good score eventually forced Logie to finish with a heat-total of 13.87 points, consequently conceding an easy victory
to his Australian rival.
Hobgood failed to make the most of his local knowledge of the waves and found himself sitting at third place at the conclusion of the heat, scoring a 7.10 and 6.43 off his best-two waves.
Tags: