Junior Faria and Gabriel Medina qualify for Saquarema Pro International’s round of 12
The round of 24 of Saquarema Pro International continued at the beach-break of Itauna in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Saturday afternoon, May 28th. Brazil’s Junior Faria ousted the in-form surfer from Australia, Julian Wilson, in the fifth heat.
The sixth heat saw Brazil’s Gabriel Medina prevail over his compatriot, Pedro Henrique, to advance to the next round of the competition.
Under any other circumstances, there would not have been a single surfer who would have opted to surf at Itauna beach in the last few days. The waves and weather conditions had consistently given the surfers a tough time. However, the fourth Association
of Surfing Professionals (ASP) Prime event of the year, Saquarema Pro International, had chosen the site for the contest and the athletes were not left with any choice but to mount their boards and surf in the difficult conditions.
The weather on Saturday turned out to be stormy and wet, preventing the surfers from making the most of the six-foot waves breaking at the beach.
Undaunted by the intimidating weather, Brazil’s Faria entered the fifth heat of the round of 24 to face Australia’s Wilson, the surfer who was being considered as the favourite to win due to his excellent form. However, the Brazilian surfer refused to give
in to the pressure of facing such a nerve-racking opponent and instantly locked a wave to throw down a combination of breath-taking flips and turns. The wave earned him a well-deserved 9.23, the highest single-wave score of the day. He later followed it up
with a 4.77 to end with a heat-total of 14.00 to walk away a winner.
“This heat was great,” said Faria. “I was lucky to find a good wave early but it’s been tricky, so I guess you’ve got to be lucky and not make any mistakes.”
There were high expectations from Wilson, but he failed to live up to them. He only managed a 4.67 and 4.60 off his two waves to finish with an overall score of 9.33. The weak response not only awarded the victory to his Brazilian rival, it also marked the
end of the competition for him. It was a real shame to see him getting eliminated after remaining so impressive in the last few days.
The sixth heat saw two Brazilians, Medina and Henrique, go head-to-head for a place in the next round. Medina pulled off a set of impressive tricks after locking a wave halfway through the heat, to earn 7.07 points off it. He followed it up with another
decent wave, earning 5.67 from it to finish with a heat total of 12.74.
Henrique put up a determined fight, but failed to get enough points to beat his rival. He earned 5.77 from his first wave and needed 6.98 points from his second, but only managed to get 5.13. Ending up short by 1.84 points, he succumbed to Medina and got
his name added to the elimination list.
Faria and Medina have advanced to the next stage of the event, the round of 12, where they will be competing for a place in the quarter-final.
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