Pierre-Louis Costes (FRA) has won the NMD/VS Fronton PRO
PLC Wins Fronton 2012
Galdar, Friday 14th December 2012 – Pierre-Louis Costes (FRA) has won the NMD/VS Fronton PRO 2012 in pumping 6- 10 foot heaving barrels at Fronton today, defeating an in form Jared Houston (ZAF) in the final.
Houston seemed to have a strangle hold on the frenchman early in the heat, posting a 9.25 on his first wave for a huge barrel to backflip and backing it up with a lofty invert on another set wave.
Under the pressure, the Frenchman rose to the challenge, taking off on a draining right-hander, executing a flawless spin inside the tube and exiting the barrel with a lofty backflip over the shallow reef, scoring a near perfect 9.83, giving him a fighting chance to win the final.Now only requiring a mid 7 score to gain the lead, Costes scooped into a deep barrel and exited with speed and control to earn himself a 7.93 and a narrow lead over the South African until the final buzzer sounded.
Finishing in equal third place were Mark McCarthy (ZAF) and Dave Winchester (AUS), both putting on strong performances throughout the event. McCarthy eliminated newly crowned 2012 IBA World Champion Jeff Hubbard in the dying seconds of their quarterfinal match-up.
With only 10 seconds remaining, the South African scooped into a shallow right hander, riding the barrel to perfection and scoring a 9.83 to put Hubbard’s Fronton World Title campaign in the hands of Dave Winchester.
Winchester needed to progress through his semifinal battle with eventual winner Pierre-Louis Costes to clinch his maiden World Title.
Although Winchester posted a huge heat score of 17.48 for a combination of barrels and high flying inverts, the determined Frenchman stood his ground and edged Winchester out with an even bigger heat score of 18.41 out of a possible 20 points, deeming Jeff Hubbard the 2012 IBA World Champion.
10 highest heat totals of the event:
18.75 : Ben Player [AUS] Round 06 Heat 32
18.41 : Pierre-Louis Costes [FRA] SEMI-FINAL Heat 38
18.4 : Jared Houston [ZAF] SEMI-FINAL Heat 37
17.76 : Pierre-Louis Costes [FRA] FINAL Heat 39
17.7 : Jared Houston [ZAF] FINAL Heat 39
17.53 : Pierre-Louis Costes [FRA] QUARTER-FINAL Heat 36
17.48 : Dave Winchester [AUS] SEMI-FINAL Heat 38
17.28 : Jeff Hubbard [HAW] Round 03 Heat 16
17.18 : Jared Houston [ZAF] QUARTER-FINAL Heat 33
16.95 : Mark McCarthy [ZAF] Round 03 Heat 14
10 highest single wave scores of the event:
10 : Ben Player [AUS] Round 06 Heat 32
9.95 : Jared Houston [ZAF] SEMI-FINAL Heat 37
9.83 : Pierre-Louis Costes [FRA] FINAL Heat 39
9.83 : Mark McCarthy [ZAF] QUARTER-FINAL Heat 34
9.63 : Uri Valadao [BRA] Round 04 Heat 22
9.5 : Jared Houston [ZAF] QUARTER-FINAL Heat 33
9.48 : Pierre-Louis Costes [FRA] SEMI-FINAL Heat 38
9.43 : Dave Winchester [AUS] SEMI-FINAL Heat 38
9.25 : Jeff Hubbard [HAW] Round 03 Heat 16
9.25 : Jared Houston [ZAF] FINAL Heat 39
Since the NMD/VS Fronton PRO 2012 is the final event of 2012 and Jeff Hubbard has been crowned the 2012 IBA World Champion, here are the complete seedings after event 8 of 8.
Final top 16 GSS seeding for 2012:
1 – Jeff Hubbard (HAW)
2 – Dave Winchester (AUS)
3 – Pierre-Louis Costes (FRA)
4 – Guilherme Tamega (BRA)
5 – Jared Houston (ZAF)
6 – Mark McCarthy (ZAF)
7 – Mitch Rawlns (AUS)
8 – Ben Player (AUS)
9 – Amaury Lavernhe (REU)
10 – Mike Stewart (HAW)
11 – Andrew Lester (AUS)
12 – Magno Passos (BRA)
13 – Uri Valadao (BRA)
14 – Alex Uranga (ESK)
15 – Sam Bennet (AUS)
16 – Eder Luciano (BRA)
2012 GQS riders qualified for the 2013 GSS, making up the bottom 8 of the 2013 top 24:
1 – Brahim Iddouch (MOR)
2 – Damian King (AUS)
3 – Sacha Specker (ZAF)
4 – Yoan Florantin (REU)
5 – Alan Munoz (CHL)
6 – Jones Russell (AUS)
7 – Jacob Romero (HAW)
8 – Nick Ormerod (AUS)
The first event of the 2013 IBA World tour will be at Pipeline form 16th February to 2nd March 2013.
For all results and the full draw of the 2012 NMD/VS Fronton Pro, visit http://results.ibaworldtour.com/draw.html or