Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore advance to quarter-finals at Roxy Pro Biarritz 2012
Australia’s Stephanie Gilmore and Hawaii’s Carissa Moore qualified for the quarter-finals at Roxy Pro Biarritz 2012, the sixth of seven stops on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Tour, after walking away with top honours from their
respective Round 3 heats that went down at Cote Des Basques in Biarritz, France, on Friday, July 13.
Gilmore put on a superb performance to down Hawaii’s Malia Manuel and Peru’s Sofia Mulanovich in the third heat, sending both her rivals into the relegation Round 4 as a result to surf again for their place in their quarter-finals.
The fourth heat saw Moore get the better of Australia’s Laura Enever and New Zealand’s Paige Hareb to advance to the quarter-finals, while sending the latter two surfers into the fourth round to have another shot at securing their spot in the next stage
of the competition.
The warm and sunny weather had allured a huge crowd to the primary event site, promising them a huge dose of thrilling action as the elite ASP female surfers battled it out to earn their place in the quarter-finals without having to surf in the fourth round.
Gilmore, former four-time ASP Women’s World Champion and current no.1 on the ASP World Rankings, was just three heats away from sealing her fifth ASP World Title. Pitted against two solid competitors, the Australian surfer got off to a solid start and soon
collected a 7.50-point ride. Continuing the momentum, she backed it up with an 8.50-point wave to get to a heat-total of 16.00 points. The score kept her well out of reach on the score-board, consequently earning her the wind.
“There were some moments of brilliance out there earlier when the tide was right, the sun was out and the wind was holding off” Gilmore said. “Sally’s (Fitzgibbons) heat in particular looked so fun, she just had nice little perfect waves and yeah I was a
little bit too early and a little bit too late but I made it through so I’m happy.”
Manuel collected a couple of scores in the six-point range to finish with a heat-total of 13.70 points, while Mulanovich had to settle for a third-place finish after scoring a two-wave total of 9.60 points.
The fourth heat saw the defending ASP Women’s World Champion Moore secured her place in the quarter-finals after making a solid impact in her battle against Enever and Hareb. The Hawaiian sensation got off to a slow start, but stepped up in the final minutes
of the heat to collect a 7.75 and 6.25-point ride, thus finishing with a heat-total of 14.00 points.
Enever finished in second place with a heat-total of 9.25 points, while Hareb had to settle for the bottom-place finish with a two-wave total of 6.10 points. Both the surfers were consequently relegated to the fourth round.
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