Wildcard Julian Wilson Scores Massive at Arugam Bay’s SriLankan Airlines Pro
Wildcard Julian Wilson lights up Arugam Bay at the SriLankan Airlines Pro.
ARUGAM BAY, Sri Lanka (Sunday, June 20, 2010) – Julian Wilson signaled a sensational return to form today, emphatically winning his opening round heat of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) 6-Star SriLankan Airlines at Arugam Bay.
Wilson notched up the event’s highest heat score thus far along with the highest single wave with an outstanding 9.50 out of a possible 10 in his two wave combined tally of 18.10 (out of a possible 20).
The 22-year-old is returning from a serious ankle injury and subsequent operation performed back in February, and his form today left no one in doubt that he’s back and ready to perform on surfing’s big stage.
“It feels great to be surfing well again. It’s been a long drawn out recovery, but just the past three weeks I’ve really started to feel good about my surfing and I’m confident I can compete properly and score big.”
“This is an ideal wave for me as it reels off over this long point and I’ve been able to fully test myself and that heat really summed up how I feel about this place – it’s great – awesome people, super fun performance wave and hopefully my next heat I get the waves again and enjoy the event.”
“The event awarded me a wildcard and I’m honoured to be invited to such a great place and surf here. It’s already been an eye-opening experience in a beautiful country.”
Hawaiian surfers enjoyed a good day today with T.J Barron, John John Florence, Kiron Jabour and Mason Ho all successfully advancing to Round 2, and the event’s No. 1 seed Drew Courtney (Australia) made a come-from-behind charge in his heat to win through to Round 2.
Strong afternoon winds again saw the event placed on-hold around midday with organizers keen to run the opening four Round 2 heats on dusk when winds generally abate and blow offshore.
Organizers expect to run early tomorrow in clean conditions and then are looking to an excellent new swell of serious size filling in Wednesday and Thursday for the finals.
Being such a consistent wave, particularly with morning offshore winds, the emphasis will be on quality waves all the way through to Thursdays swell peak and final.
The event is LIVE web LIVE via www.srilankanairlinespro.com
For more information, log onto www.aspworldtour.com
Category: All ASP News, ASP Star News
