Jeff Hubbard wins the Encanto Pro in Puerto Rico! Congrats Jeff!
Press release & recap from the IBA:
Middles Beach, Tuesday 13th November 2012 – Jeff Hubbard (HAW) has won the 2012 IBA Encanto Pro in rampy 4-6 foot waves at Middles Beach today. The 2x World Champion defeated wildcard Ruben “Babby” Quinones (PR) in the final with a total heat score of 16.55 vs 12.70.
After the final Quinones was carried and cheered up the beach by his friends and fans as he flew the Puerto Rican flag with pride.
When asked about his road to the final, Hubbard explained: “I was in focus mode all day. I was trying not to think about the title race or be too distracted by Winnies performance. It was hard, because he was killing it.”
On his road to the final, Hubbard defeated Andrew Lester (AUS) in Round 6 with 19 vs 14.21 in what can only be described as the performance of the event, scoring the only perfect 10 point ride of the men’s GSS event and backing it up with a near perfect 9 point ride to post the highest total heat score of the event. In the quarterfinal, he took down an inform Jared Houston (ZAF) 17.38 vs 16.7 who put up an excellent fight, especially in dying moments of the heat. The Brazilian Eder Luciano stood his ground and showed why he deserves to be in the top 16, but was stumped when the Hawaiian needed a big score and kept his calm as time ran out by launching a risky air-roll-spin in the final minute of the heat to take the win.
Hubbard added, “the waves and conditions were good today, so I did not have to worry about what I needed to do to advance through heats, I just went out and surfed like I would when I free surf.”
The Hawaiian clinched his 3rd GSS event victory today, rocketing him back into the lead on the rankings, putting the pressure back onto Dave Winchester (AUS) who will have to improve on a 3rd place finish if he is to challenge Hubbard for the 2012 world title.
The updated rankings after the 2012 IBA Encanto Pro (Best 5 results)
1 Jeff Hubbard Hawaii 8440
2 Dave Winchester Australia 8380
3 Guilherme Tamega Brazil 7600
4 Pierre Louis Costes France 7360
5 Mitch Rawlins Australia 6400
5 Mark McCarthy Sth Africa 6400
7 Jared Houston Sth Africa 6060
8 Ben Player Australia 6020
9 Amaury Lavernhe Reunion 5660
10 Mike Stewart Hawaii 5520
11 Andrew Lester Australia 5440
12 Magno Passos Brazil 5140
13 Alex Uranga Basque 5060
14 Uri Valadao Brazil 5020
15 Eder Luciano Brazil 4920
16 Sam Bennett Australia 4760
The 2012 world title race will now be decided at the 8th and final event on the 2012 IBA GSS calendar, the NMD/VS Fronton Pro 2012 which will be held at el Fronton in the Canary Islands from the 7th to the 16th of December.
Go to www.ibaworldtour.com for the detailed story on the 2012 IBA world title race and make sure you watch the NMD/VS Fronton Pro 2012 live at http://ibaworldtour.com/live/ to see who will be crowned the 2012 IBA World Champion.
Check into the (IBA) International Bodyboarding Association website and IBA Facebook or follow IBA on Twitter for all the updates.
