Taylor Knox knocks Adriano de Souza out of Quiksilver Pro France
Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Champion Tour is without any doubt the greatest and more thrilling stage in surfing, bringing out the best in the surfers and pumping them up to put on their best performances.
Brazil’s Adriano de Souza had joined the ranks of the elite surfers a few years back and took only a small time to establish himself as one of the best surfers in the sport.
Competing against the best in the business is never an easy thing to do and collecting good results was even harder, but the Brazilian surfer had been doing it consistently over the years.
Beginning the 2012 season of the elite tour with a runner-up result in the opening event in Australia, it was evident that the Brazilian powerhouse had big plans for this year and he was going to give it his all to achieve his goal.
After the first six events were done, he sat at the No.5 spot on the 2012 ASP World Championship Tour rankings, with the coveted World Title well within his reach.
Coming to La Graviere in Hossegor, France, for the Quiksilver Pro France, De Souza knew he needed a good result to keep his chances of clinching the greatest honours in the sport alive.
However, he failed to get the sort of start that he had hoped for. Finding himself pitted against his fellow countryperson Jadson Andre and America’s Damien Hobgood on the opening day of the competition, De Souza succumbed to the former and therefore ended
up getting relegated to the second round.
With the pressure of elimination hanging over his head, he now needed to produce a win, though it was never going to be an easy chose as he was up against America’s Taylor Knox in a man-on-man battle.
The 41-year-old Knox had not exactly been in the greatest of forms this season and struggled to make a solid impact during the previous events, but De Souza knew what the elite tour veteran was capable of and therefore was on his toes during their encounter.
As the heat got underway, both the surfers got off to a slow start, with the four-to-six foot barrels not exactly easy to tame.
As the heat progressed, the American surfer locked his first business-wave to put an 8.33 on display and kept the momentum going to add an additional 8.47 points to his account, thus getting to a heat-total of 16.80 points.
De Souza struggled to get going for most part of the heat, but stepped up as the contest got closer to the buzzer. He managed to score a 4.67 off his first business-wave, which was hardly good enough.
The Brazilian surfer found just the wave that he was searching for and successfully milked it for 9.77 points. He suddenly appeared to be in the zone, looking as good as ever, but this sort of confidence came too late and he found himself settling for a
heat-total of 14.44 as the buzzer sounded, signalling the end of the heat.
As a result, De Souza found himself eliminated from the competition and thus putting himself at a risk of falling on the ASP World Tour rankings.
Knox, on the other hand, had plenty of reason to celebrate the win as it was earned by defeating one of the best surfers in the world. This was just the sort of thing that he needed to get his confidence back after a series of dismal performances.
“It was great out there,” Knox said “It’s just nice to surf such good conditions. I was so stoked. C.J. (Hobgood) had a really good quote about here, he said ‘if you’re standing on the beach and the waves look perfect, you’ve already missed it’ so we got
out there and it was a little funky but turned perfect so hopefully it stays great for the rest of the day.”
De Souza succumbing to Knox in the elimination round was definitely the biggest shock of the day, leaving everyone in attendance stunned. The Brazilian surfer will surely have to pull himself together and instead of pondering over what went wrong in France,
he needs to stay focused on his goal.
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