Tyler Wright and Coco Ho move into semi-finals at Roxy Pro Biarritz 2012
Australia’s Tyler Wright and Hawaii’s Coco Ho qualified for the semi-finals at Roxy Pro Biarritz 2012, the latest stop on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s World Tour, after claiming top honours in their respective quarter-final heats
that took place at La Grande Plage in Biarritz, France, on Saturday, July 14.
Wright earned her place in the next stage of the competition by downing the in-form American Courtney Conlogue in the first Quarter-final and thus forcing her to make a premature exit from the contention for the event title.
The second Quarter-final saw Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons surprisingly succumb to Ho, consequently getting eliminated from the event while sending the latter into the next stage to continue her pursuit of overall victory.
Wright, ASP Women’s World Tour sophomore and current No.3 on the World Rankings, had her work cut out for her as she found herself pitted against Conlogue, current ASP Women’s World No.5. The latter had collected an overall victory at one of the stops earlier
this season and thus posed a serious threat to the Australian surfer’s survival in the event.
As the battle got underway, both the surfers got off to a rather lacklustre start. Conlogue eventually took the lead with a pretty ordinary 4.60-point ride. She widened the gap between herself and her rival on the score-board by adding an additional 5.93
points to her account, thus moving to a heat-total of 10.53 points.
Looking pretty unthreatening for most part of the heat, Wright stepped up in the dying minutes of the battle. Locking a juicy wave, she unleashed a flurry of tricks to earn a 7.17 for the effort and immediately backed it up with a 4.20-point ride to finish
with a heat-total of 11.37 points. The superb last-minute effort served to earn her the win, thus taking her into the next stage of the competition.
The second Quarter-final featured a huge upset as Fitzgibbons, current No.2 on the ASP Women’s World Tour, bowed out to Ho, someone who had been struggling with the consistency in her form.
The Hawaiian surfer got off to an excellent start, opening her account with an 8.33-point ride. She later added another 4.27 points to her account, thus moving to a heat-total of 12.60 points.
Fitzgibbons struggled to find her rhythm and only managed to earn a 4.83 and 3.93 off her best-two waves to eventually finish with a heat-total of 8.76 points. As a result, she found herself eliminated from the competition.
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