Sofia Mulanovich and Lakey Peterson qualify for Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro quater-finals
The first heat of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro’s fourth round commenced at the Praia do Guincho beach at Estoril, Portugal, on Saturday, June 11th.
The heat pitted Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich against America’s Lakey Peterson and France’s Pauline Ado in a triple-threat battle for a place in the quarter-finals. With such an impressive line-up, the heat was expected to be full of exciting surfing action and
intense battles. Fortunately for surfing fans, the contest lived up to expectations, with the credit going to Mulanovich and Peterson.
The Peruvian surfer, Mulanovich is widely acknowledged for her surfing prowess and gained even more popularity ever since reaching the final of Association of Surfing Professional’s (ASP) World Tour event, Commonwealth Bank Beachley Classic, in Australia
last month. She had shown a consistent performance in the current ASP 6-Star event’s first three rounds and continued to assert her excellent form in the round of 12 as well.
With the clock indicating that 14 minutes were left in the heat, Mulanovich locked a wave to earn 7.00 points to move into the lead. Not quite done yet, she caught another good wave in the final moments of the heat to score an impressive 8.00 points. The
heat-total of 15.00 eventually carried her off to victory and secured a place for her in the quarter-finals.
America’s Peterson had no intention of watching Mulanovich surf to victory comfortably and put up a determined fight to clinch the win herself. She caught her first good wave in the middle stages of the heat as well and soon followed it up with an 8.00 to
finish with 14.60 points in the end. Even though she missed out on victory by a deficit of 0.40 points, she still managed to secure the second position. The end result brought a smile to her face she knew that her place in the quarter-finals was confirmed.
Pauline Ado, also a competitor in the ASP Women’s World Tour, failed to do justice to her repute on Saturday. Her surfing was rather ordinary and failed to meet the standards that her rivals had set during the heat. She opened her account with a 5.50-point
wave immediately, but was unable to back it up with a better score, eventually settling for a 2.75-point wave as her second best in the heat, and finish with a two-point wave score of 8.25 points in the end. The weak performance got her eliminated from the
competition.
ASP 6-Star Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro is the second stop on the ASP Women’s European title race.
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