Tiago Pires overcomes Kai Otton to enter Round 3 of Billabong Rio Pro – Surfing News
The tenth heat of Billabong Rio Pro’s Round 2 saw Portugal’s Tiago Pires get the better of Australia’s Kai Otton at the main event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, May 14.
The outcome of the battle served to carry Pires into the third round of the third of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Title Series, while bringing the competition to a premature end for Otton.
The stormy surfing conditions prevailing at the primary event site put the experience of elite ASP surfers to test. They had to surf in flat conditions on the opening day of the competition at the secondary event site of Arpoador and then found themselves
spending the next few days on dry land. Once the competition resumed, the surfers found themselves facing challenging four-to-six barrels. There were hardly any memorable performances landed during the course of the day, with the surfing heavy-weights struggling
to adapt to the intimidating waves.
The 10th heat of Round 2 pitted Pires against Otton in a battle for the Round 3 spot. Both the surfers were unable to make a solid impact during their Round 1 heat, therefore getting relegating to the elimination round. Pushed against the edge,
both the surfers needed to step up and deliver a strong performance in order to secure their place in the next round of the competition, or else find themselves ejected from the contention for the event title.
As the man-on-man heat got underway, Otton drew first blood with a 3.33-point ride in the opening minutes of the battle. He kept catching wave after wave to find another decent score and eventually managed to find juicy wave in the late minutes of the heat,
posting a 6.87 on the score-board to reach a heat-total of 10.20 points.
Pires got off to a modest start, but eventually broke free of the shackles midway through the heat to post a 6.00 to his account. Still trailing behind his Australian rival with only a few minutes left in the heat, the Portuguese surfer required a score
close to the five-point range in order to move into the lead. Rising to the occasion, Pires found himself a 4.90-point ride to move to a heat-total of 10.90 points, thus walking away with the win.
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