Soli Bailey and Mitch Baker successfully make it through Day 1 of Championship Moves Open
The Australian surfers Soli Bailey and Mitch Baker won their respective heats in Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Championship Moves Open’s Round 1 (Round of 48) that went down at the Jan Juc Beach in Victoria, Australia, on Thursday, January 5.
The 2012 ASP Calendar got off to a great start as the 1-Star event brought together a huge field of talented Australian and a handful of foreign surfers to battle it out for top honours and recognition. The three-foot waves on offer at the Jan Juc beach
provided a decent opportunity for the surfers to prove their mettle in rip-able waves.
Throughout the day, the surfing fans were treated to a series of impressive performances as surfers pushed themselves hard to secure their place in the next round.
The day eventually came down to the seventh heat of Round 1, pitting Bailey against his compatriots Carl Wright, Nik Hoskin and James Healey.
As the contest got underway, Bailey got down to business right away and locked a wave in the opening minutes of the heat to score a 5.75 off it. He kept searching for another decent score as the battle progressed and eventually managed to find a 7.00-point
wave in the final minutes of the wave, consequently moving to a heat-total of 12.75 points. The score earned him top honours and carried him into Round 2 (Round of 32).
Wright got off to a slow start, but evidently warmed up to the waves near the mid-way stage of the battle. He challenged Bailey with a 6.25-point wave, but failed to follow it up with another good score and eventually finished with a two-wave total of 10.80
points. The resultant runner-up position added him to the Round 2 line-up as well.
Hoskin and Healey failed to make much of an impact during the course of the four-man battle and finished with a heat-total of 8.85 and 8.75 respectively. Their bottom-two finish resulted in their elimination from the competition.
The final heat of the competition’s Round 1 saw Baker square off with his fellow Australians Asher Wales, Luke Archibald and Tom Allan.
Baker maintained a patient attitude since the very first minute of the battle. Just before the half-way stage, he locked a wave to score 6.00 points off it. In the dying minutes of the heat, he unleashed a string of impressive manoeuvres on a wave to add
an additional 7.25 points to his account, taking his two-wave total to 13.25 points. The last-minute effort allowed him to clinch a comprehensive victory, thus moving confidently into the next round.
Wales, on the other hand, went for a much more aggressive approach and caught wave after wave while searching for a competitive score. Collecting a 5.50 and 5.35 off his best-two waves, he finished with a heat-total of 10.85 points to secure runner-up place
and thus make the Round 2 cut.
Archibald and Allan were forced to make a premature exit from the competition after finishing in third and fourth position respective. Archibald scored a two-wave total of 10.15 points, while Allan finished with an inadequate heat-total of 9.70 point.
With the conclusion of the eighth heat, the first round of Championship Moves Open stood completed. The surfing action was going to resume with Round 2 on the next day of the competition.
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