BUONDI O'NEILL CAPARICA PRO 2004

Final Day - May 1, 2004 - RUBEN GONZALEZ WINS AT HOME

Conditions: sunny and warm,light on-shore breeze, weak 1-2 ft beach break.
Waves dropped a bit but luckily the light wind affected less the small surf.
The Caparica local and event wildcard Hugo Zagalo, demonstrated that he deserved his spot in the 1/8 finals causing the first major upsets when he took the 2 nd qualifying place just behind Patrick Beven (Fra),last year's european champion and defeating the welsh Nathan Phillips and the young marrocan Abdel El Harim (Interference on Hugo Zagalo).

1/8 final stand out was the french Micky Picon who posted a total heat score of 17.87pts out of possible 20pts, surfing again incredibly fast, changing constantly the direction and just destroying the micro-waves with plenty of maneuvers.

The ¼ finals started with some big scores of Patrick Beven ( 8.67pts, 8.03pts) and Ruben Gonzalez ( Port) who both easily made it to the ½ finals.

This round's major upset was the loss of last week's tube champion Tim Boal (Fra) and the actual european ranking leader Justin Mujica (Port) who both couldn't find any potential waves and therefore didn t manage to score above an average 5 point wave.

Mikael Picon just caught two 2 point waves till 5 minutes before the end but finally found two good waves and made it through to the ½ finals. The portuguese veteran and Caparica local Joao Antunes, who had to surf the trials due to his no show in Tapia (lost seeding) caught an excelent wave and qualified also for the ½ finals.

Even though the german Marlon Lipke is not exactly a small wave specialist he survived the 1/8 finals and won his ¼ final heat leaving his friend Gony Zubizarreta in 2 nd place.

Eneko Acero, one of the european small wave experts, only got 3 rd even though he had an excellent first wave. He needed a high 4 pointer to be able to beat Gony but just didn t get the needed score...

Patrick dominated again the ½ finals posting the 2 nd highest score of the contest (9pts), followed by last week's finalist Ruben Gonzalez .

The 2 nd ½ final was dominated by Mikael Picon followed by Joao Antuntes, who made it through with his final wave ( 6.5pts)

Ruben Gonzalez, had the best start in the 30 minutes final, surprising his fellow competitors with a 8 point left-hander just seconds after the beginning of the heat. The conditions got more and more difficicult due to the dropping tide and a stronger on-shore wind.

A well deserved victory after his 2 nd place in Peniche...

Congratulations to Ruben who jumps up the 3 rd place of the european ranking;

heat draw here