Solid performances take Courtney Conlogue and Sage Erickson into ASP 6-Star Swatch Girls Pro France
America’s Courtney Conlogue and her fellow countryperson Sage Erickson claimed top honours in their respective Quarter-finals at the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Swatch Girls Pro France that continued at Les Bourdaines in Seignosse,
France, on Saturday, June 2.
Conlogue got the better of Hawaii’s Alessa Quizon in the first Quarter-final, while the second Quarter-final featured an intense battle that concluded with Erickson defeating France’s Pauline Ado to advance through into the semi-final stage.
The surfing conditions prevailing at the primary event site turned out to be nothing short of perfect during the morning session, with two-to-three foot wind affect waves sending plenty of scoring opportunities in the direction of surfers. The decision of
the event organisers to call a lay day on Friday in order to resume the event in high-performance conditions turned out to be right on the mark, promising a heavy dose of enthralling action on the final day of the latest ASP star event.
The first Quarter-final pitted Conlogue in a one-on-one battle against Quizon for the semi-final spot. Both the girls had been exhibiting a solid form since the start of the competition and were expected to give each other a tough time during their clash.
As the battle got underway, it did not take long for Conlogue to completely steal the show. The 19-year-old American locked a juicy wave in the opening minutes of the heat to post an 8.75 on the score-board. Maintaining her lead throughout the course of
the battle, she caught a promising wave in the dying minutes of the heat and punctuated it with a combination of powerful turns to earn a perfect 10 for the effort, thus finishing with a heat-total of 18.75 points.
Quizon only managed to respond with a heat-total of 10.50 points, which included a 6.50 and 4.00-point ride, which forced her to succumb to Conlogue and led her to concede a convincing victory to her rival.
The second Quarter-final featured an intense battle between Erickson and Ado, with both the surfers showing strong determination to keep themselves alive in contention for the event title.
Erickson drew first blood with a spectacular 9.00-point ride and soon backed it up with a 6.75-point ride to move to a heat-total of 15.75 points.
Ado had no intention of going down without putting up a strong fight. She posted a 6.00 to her account early in the heat and went on to back it up with an impressive 7.25-point wave, thus reaching a heat-total of 13.25 points. Despite a desperate hunt for
another big score she failed to improve on her score and thus eventually had no choice but to bow out to Erickson, consequently sending the latter into the next stage of the competition.
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