Victory over Jadson Andre takes Brett Simpson into Round 3 of Billabong Rio Pro
America’s Brett Simpson successfully made his way through into the third round of Billabong Rio Pro, the third of ten stops on the 2012 Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Title Series, after prevailing over Brazil’s Jadson Andre in the sixth
heat of Round 2 that went down at the main event site of Barra da Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Monday, May 14.
While the success in Round 2 served to extend Simpson’s life in the event, the second consecutive defeat led to the ejection from the contention for the event title.
The four-to-six foot barrels on offer at the primary event site on the latest day of the competition was just the thing that the event organisers had been hoping for after they kept the event on hold for the last few days. The first round of the competition
had gone down at the alternate event venue of Arpoador that had offered tricky one-to-two foot waves. However, the event organisers had decided against continuing the competition in testy conditions and instead began to wait for an improvement in the surfing
conditions at Barra da Tijuca before getting the show back on.
Both Simpson and Andre had struggled to adapt to the waves on offer at Arpoador, which led to their relegation to the elimination round. Only one of them could possibly go into the third round after their Round 1 loss, which promised their Round 2 clash
to be pretty intense.
However, their encounter turned out to be a low-scoring affair, with neither of them looking comfortable in the barrelling conditions at the primary event site.
Simpson remained pretty busy throughout the course of the heat, catching wave after wave to search for a good score, but to no avail. He eventually had to settle for a 4.33 and 5.00-point ride as his best, which took him to a heat-total of 9.33 points.
Despite his local knowledge of the waves, Andre failed to make much of an impact during the heat. The local talent never really managed to break free of the shackles and only managed to post a 4.73 and 3.87 on the score-board to finish with a heat-total
of 8.60 points. As a result, he found himself eliminated from the competition.
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