Australia’s Tyler Wright got the better of her fellow compatriot Sally Fitzgibbons in the final of Roxy Pro Gold Coast, the first of seven stops on the 2013 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Women’s Championship Tour, which went down at
Snapper Rocks in Queensland, Australia, on Saturday, March 9, 2013.
Both the Australians were in prime form on the final day of the women’s competition, adapting extremely well to the two-to-three foot waves that were on offer at the primary event and putting on an exquisite show.
Fitzgibbons, who had earned a shot at the event title after prevailing over former ASP Women’s World Champion Carissa Moore in the semi-final, was a clear favourite in the final due to her past records, though Wright was never expected to go down without
a fight.
However, the 18-year-old Wright, who had downed the reigning five-time ASP Women’s World Champion Stephanie Gilmore in the semi-finals to reach the final, clearly had other plans and was in no mood to settle for anything less than victory after getting this
far.
Fitzgibbons had a solid standing for most part of the heat and seemed to be heading towards victory after sitting on a heat-total of 16.66 points with only a few minutes left for the buzzer to go off.
Wright needed a big score to challenge her rival’s lead and that is exactly what she managed to get her hands on. In the dying minutes of the heat, she locked a juicy wave to show-off her class and ended up earning a 9.20 for the effort.
The score took her to a decisive heat-total of 17.97, thus earning her the Roxy Pro Gold Coast title and an early lead in the 2013 ASP Women’s World Tour.
“I don’t even know what to say right now,” Wright said in her post-victory interview. “I wasn’t even thinking out there. I was singing to myself and when I came in, my sister said ‘I was singing right along with you’. That little wave came in and hugged
the bank and I just left it all on the wave. To get the score and the win like that, it’s incredible.”
The female surfing professionals will resume their campaign for the 2013 ASP Women’s World Championship Title at the Drug Aware Margaret River Pro, which is scheduled to go down in Western Australia from March 16-24.
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