Sage Erickson and Sarah Beardmore advance to third round of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro
Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro’s round of 48 continued with the 11th heat on Friday, June 10th, at Praia do Guincho beach in Estoril, Portugal.
Though the contest turned out to be a low-scoring affair, it was not short on intensity as the battle between America’s Sage Erickson and Australia’s Sarah Beardmore brought everyone to the edge of their non-existent seats. The nail-biter eventually reached
its conclusion with Erickson prevailing over her rival as well as the other two ladies participating in the four-way battle. The victory confirmed her place in the next round of the completion.
Beardmore settled for a second-place finish and did not seem completely disappointed with neither her performance nor the end result since she qualified for the next round as well. New Zealand’s Wini Paul and France’s Lee Ann Curren rounded out the third
and fourth position, consequently getting eliminated from the race for the event title.
A large factor for keeping the heat a low scoring one was the difficult surfing conditions. The strong offshore winds did not make it easy for the surfers to make the most of the two-to-three foot waves that were breaking at the beach on Friday. It came
down to the surfers’ experience to hold their own in the sea and come up with a good enough performance to guarantee their place in the next round.
Despite the tough conditions, Erickson managed to get off to a decent start, locking a wave early in the heat to score 4.65 points off it. Feverishly searching for a better score, she eventually caught a good wave in the final moments of the contest to score
7.00 points and move to a heat-total of 11.65.
The American surfer was put under a lot of pressure by Beardmore. The Australian got off to an excellent start by earning 7.00 points from her first wave. She simply required an additional 4.66 points in order to clinch the win, but luck evaded her and she
ended up scoring 4.40 points instead. A 0.25-point deficit forced her to surrender victory to her American rival and settled for second place herself.
Paul and Curren were simply outdone by mother-nature. The demanding surfing conditions caused them to lose their rhythm as they searched desperately for good scores. Paul managed a score of 5.25 and 3.75 off her two waves to land in third place. Curren,
on the other hand, earned 3.95 points off her first wave and 4.25 off her second to round out the last position. The weak performances by the two surfers led to their elimination from the competition.
The 6-Star Estoril Surfing & Music Billabong Girls Pro is the fifth of seven stops on 2011 ASP Women’s Star Tour and second event in ASP Women’s European title race.
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