Tyler Wright, Sally Fitzgibbons, Carissa Moore and Laura Enever qualify for the Billabong Rio Pro quarterfinals
After two consecutive lay days, the Billabong Rio Pro finally resumed on Sunday, May 15, at Barra Da Tajuca in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Some of the biggest names in women surfing were in attendance at the event site on Sunday for the third round of Billabong Rio Pro, fifth stop of the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Tour. Even though the surfs were not ideal, they were sufficient enough to convince the event organizers to allow the competition to continue.
The third round kicked off with the ASP rookie from Australia, Tyler Wright, facing Brazil’s Silvana Lima and Hawaii’s Alana Blanchard in the first heat of the day. Blanchard had struggled to find her form on the first day of the event and continued to look out of rhythm on Sunday. She ended the heat with a mere 1.97 score. Lima made a determined effort to come up with something impressive but all she could manage was a 7.14 after her two waves. The first heat belonged to Wright, who posted a two-wave score of 12.50 to advance to the quarter-final stage.
The second heat pitted the in-form Hawaiian, Carissa Moore, against America’s Courtney Conlogue and New Zealand’s Paige Hareb. While Hareb remained unimpressive throughout the heat and finished with a 4.66, the battle between Moore and Conlogue remained extremely intense. Both the ladies matched each other in terms of performance, but in the end the Hawaiian managed to edge past Conlogue with a score of 11.83 against her rivals’ 11.26 to clinch the win.
The next heat featured a triple-threat showdown featuring Australia’s in-form surfer, Sally Fitzgibbons, going against France’s Pauline Ado and the Peruvian who had eliminated her from the Commonwealth Beachley Classic in the semi-finals, Sofia Mulanovich. The expectations from Mulanovich were high as the heat kicked off, but she failed to live up to them and only managed to earn 8.00 after her two-waves. Ado’s 10.73, under the challenging conditions, could not be deemed unimpressive either, but it was not enough to prevent the Australian, who scored 13.17, to walk away with victory.
The final heat of the third round saw Australia’s Laura Enever taking on her compatriot and the four-time reigning ASP Women’s Champion, Stephanie Gilmore, as well as Hawaii’s Coco Ho. All three surfers tried their best to make the most out of the low tides. Gilmore and Ho both ended up with a 9.00 by the end of the heat. Enever, however, managed to earn 11.66 to prevail over her competitors and secure her place in the quarterfinals.
The second and third-place finishers of the third round will have to compete for a quarterfinal place in the fourth round. Anyone who fails to survive the upcoming round will be eliminated from the competition.
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