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The first of the two back-to-back ASP WQS 5-Star events in Brazil, the Billabong Eco Surf Festival, was completed this past weekend with ASP Dream Tour Brazilians Adriano de Souza and Silvana Lima taking home the titles.
For Adriano, this is his 5th ASP WQS win and a repeat of his first ever win, which was at this event back in 2005.
Silvana also notched up her 5th ASP WQS win, with her first back in 2003 in France.
In the women’s event, Silvana defeated Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons, who has a commanding lead in the women’s ASP WQS ratings of 2,670 points over nearest rival Rosey Hodge from South Africa.
Sally has only done five events, with best five counting this year, and has a low score of 1,220 to better sometime this year. This is an incredible start for the year, and already Sally has qualified for the ASP Women’s World Tour 2009.
Rounding out the ASP WQS Top 5 on the ratings are Paige Hareb from New Zealand, Australian Rebecca Woods and Alana Blanchard from Hawaii.
In the men’s event Adriano defeated fellow Brazilian Marcelo Trekinho with equal thirds Nathaniel Curran (USA) and Ricardo Ferreira (BRA).
Of the final 16 competitors in the event 13 were from Brazil and you can probably expect a similar number in this week’s ASP WQS 5-Star Local Motion event at Guaruja.
In the men’s ASP WQS ratings, event winner Adriano jumped from 76th to 27th having only surfed four events. Hizunome Bettero (BRA) has overtaken Patrick Gudauskas (USA) in the top spot and now leads by around 300 points, but he still has only 6 events counting of the best 7 so can be assured to move further ahead this week.
Rounding out the Top 10 are Austin Ware (USA), Sunny Garcia (HAW), Kekoa Bacalso (HAW), David Weare (ZAF), Brett Simpson (USA), Pedro Henrique (BRA), Drew Courtney (AUS) and Nathan Yeomans (USA).
Big movers upwards were Henrique from 25th to 8th, Curran from 36th to 12th and Shaun Cansdell (AUS) 24th to 14th.
Losers all ping around 4-5 places were Nathan Hedge, Adam Robertson, Adam Melling, Rhys Bombaci and Matt Wilkinson all from Australia.