Sofia Mulanovich and Rebecca Woods advance to round 4 of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro
Peruvian surfer, Sofia Mulanovich managed to emerge triumphant in the second heat of Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro’s third round on Saturday, June 11th, at the beach-break of Praia do Guincho in Estoril, Portugal.
Other than Mulanovich, the four-way battle comprised of Australia’s Rebecca Woods, Hawaii’s Alana Blanchard and South Africa’s Nikita Robb. Woods finished in second position, cementing her place in the next round of the competition. Blanchard barely missed
out on the safe zone and had to join the fourth-place finisher, Robb, in the elimination list.
The surfing conditions at the primary event site had deteriorated even more on Saturday as compared to Sunday, with two foot waves and cross shore winds. It was the ultimate test for the surfer’s experience and skills, as only the combination of both could
make a decent performance under such conditions possible. The technical tricks had to be replaced with the rather more conventional ones due to the low tides and difficulty in staying control while surfing those waves.
While the rest of the surfers struggled to hold their own in the demanding conditions, Mulanovich came on strongly early in the heat, locking the first wave to throw down a set of tricks to earn an impressive score of 7.00 from the judges. Searching for
another good wave, she eventually caught one in the final moments of the battle, surfing it for 6.70 points, to finish with a heat-total of 13.70 points. The effort proved to be more than sufficient and earned her a convincing victory over her rivals in the
end, along with qualifying her to the round of 12.
Even though Woods failed to grab the top honours, her performance during the heat was nothing short of impressive either. She opened her account with a 6.25-point wave right in the beginning of the heat and added an additional 5.50 points to her score while
later. Finishing with a two-wave total of 11.75, she secured the second position, successfully extended her life in the competition for now.
Blanchard finished in third place after securing 5.35 points off her very first wave and immediately followed it up with a 6.05-point wave. The effort, though almost similar to that of Woods, was not enough and she ended up missing out on the safe zone by
a 0.35-point deficit. As a result, she was ejected from the event title race.
South African surfer, Robb failed to even cross the 4-point mark, earning a mere 3.90 and 3.95 points off her two waves. The poor performance put her in fourth place and eliminated her from the competition.
The Estoril Surf & Music Billabong Girls Pro is the second of four stops on Associations of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s European title race.
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