PV Laborde wins Wildcard into Rip Curl Pro

PV Laborde © Rip Curl

Rip Cirl Pro Portugal

ASP World Tour Men's Event
Peniche Portugal
10 - 21 October 2012

Live Coverage | Results/Photos/Videos etc

PV Laborde wins Moche Trials and Wildcard into Rip Curl Pro Portugal

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 9 October, 2012 : - - Rip Girl announced Dillon Perillo (USA) from California as the first wildcard for the event. PV Laborde (FRA) secured the other wildcard by taking first place in the Moche trials at Supertubes today. In a bumpy line-up, the local Hossegor surfer managed to find the scoring opportunities to place first ahead of a trio of Portuguese young up-and-comers in the names of Francisco Alves, José Ferreira and German born Nico Von Rupp.

"This morning we really thought it was going to be pumping," Laborde stated. "But the conditions didn't show up like expected, and instead it was pretty tough onshore conditions with 3-4Ft waves.. My first heat was pretty bad, but I managed to get through to the final, where I started really bad, and finally got a good wave in the last seconds on which I got the score I needed."

The Wildcards will have a chance to prove themselves when the waiting period for the contest begins tomorrow, and will first see action in Heats 5 and 6 of Round One where they will come up against either Kelly Slater and Damien Hobgood (heat 5) or Joel Parkinson and Kolohe Andino (heat 6) respectively.

Magic Seaweed forecasts a small westerly wind swell. Remnants of the trials swell for Wednesday, then a series of small windswell pulses from the west, with light westerly wind until Friday, when stronger north winds and a slightly increased wind swell with a lot of north in it as a result.

Long period fore runners of the weekend's swell start to appear Friday evening but probably not at surfable size. Sat 13th & Sun 14th - Solid swell now looks highly likely for first thing Saturday dropping in size into Sunday. Winds fresh northerly.

The first call is set tomorrow morning at 7:30am to assess conditions for a possible 8am start. When competition commences, up first will be Adriano de Souza (BRA), 25, Brett Simpson (USA), 27, and Raoni Monteiro (BRA), 30, in the opening heat of Round 1.

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RIP CURL PRO PORTUGAL ROUND 1 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Adriano de Souza (BRA), Brett Simpson (USA), Raoni Monteiro (BRA)
Heat 2: Taj Burrow (AUS), Alejo Muniz (BRA), Jadson Andre (BRA)
Heat 3: John John Florence (HAW), Kai Otton (AUS), Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Heat 4: Mick Fanning (AUS), Kieren Perrow (AUS), Dusty Payne (HAW)
Heat 5: Kelly Slater (USA), Damien Hobgood (USA), Dillon Perillo (USA)
Heat 6: Joel Parkinson (AUS), Kolohe Andino (USA), Pierre Valentin Laborde (FRA)
Heat 7: Owen Wright (AUS), Bede Durbidge (AUS), Yadin Nicol (AUS)
Heat 8: Josh Kerr (AUS), Heitor Alves (BRA), Taylor Knox (USA)
Heat 9: Gabriel Medina (BRA), Miguel Pupo (BRA), Matt Wilkinson (AUS)
Heat 10: Jeremy Flores (FRA), Michel Bourez (PYF), Adam Melling (AUS)
Heat 11: Jordy Smith (ZAF), C.J. Hobgood (USA), Travis Logie (ZAF)
Heat 12: Julian Wilson (AUS), Adrian Buchan (AUS), Tiago Pires (PRT)

Previous reports:
# 1 : Rip Curl Pro Portugal heats world title race
# 2 : Coming Soon
# 3 : Coming Soon
# 4 : Coming Soon