Tiago Pires defeats Gabe Kling to claim ASP 6-Star Islas Canarias Santa Pro title
Portugal’s Tiago Pires took out the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star Islas Canarias Santa Pro after getting the better of America’s Gabe Kling in the final that went down at the main break of San Juan in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, on Friday,
October 26, 2012.
The victory earned the “Portuguese Tiger” 3500 ranking points and allowed him to walk away with a prize cheque of $25,000.
The battle for the overall victory turned out to be nothing short of a thriller, with both the surfers stretching themselves to the limit while pursuing the event title.
Once the dust settled, however, it was Pires who stood victorious, whereas his rival was forced to settle for a runner-up finish.
“I was really sad with my performance in the European leg, I’ve been struggling on the last few CT events and I just came here to get some points and work on my Star rankings. It’s been a very tough event with many guys shredding and I didn’t see myself
make the final, but things got together for me and I felt better and better throughout the event with the semifinal being my peak performance. I was scared of Gabe cause he’s a really good competitor, he’s won events and I knew it was going to be a hard one!”
said Pires during his post-final interview.
With shifting two-to-three foot waves breaking at the main event site during the final, both the surfers knew that it was going to be a real challenge to find big scores.
Pires, however, was really high on confidence due to a mesmerising semi-final performance and used this confidence to put on yet another phenomenal show.
The Portugal surfer went through a series of decent scores before eventually locking his first business-wave to executive a series of back-hand turns, earning an 8.50 for the effort.
Kling, however, bounced back into the heat with a 6.80 off his first business-wave and immediately following it up with an impressive 7.67-point ride to move into the lead with a heat-total of 14.47 points.
With hardly any time left in the heat, Pires found himself trailing behind his rival, requiring one big score to claim the win.
Fortunately for him, the sea generously offered him a perfect opportunity and he successfully capitalised on it with yet another series of back-hand manoeuvres, this time reaping an 8.03 for the effort.
The last-minute charge carried him to a heat-total of 16.53 points, thus allowing him to prevail over Kling and walk away with the win.
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