LOCAL TIAGO PIRES WINS BUONDI BILLABONG PRO 

Sunday, September 4 th , 2005 .

Local surfer Tiago Pires pulled off the win of his life this afternoon by winning the 2005 Buondi Billabong Pro a men's ASP 6 star World Qualifying Series (WQS) event. In an emotion charged final Pires held on to take the US$15,000 winner's cheque. Competition relocated north along the reef break of Ribeira D'Ilhas to “A Pontinha” where quarter-finals and semis were run before returning to the main site for the final of this US$125,000 contest. The huge crowd did not mind having to move back from the cliffs to watch their hero claim victory.

Good quality 2-3ft waves with occasional bigger sets were on offer for the final session of the day at both sites. Relocating to avoid the high tide problems allowed a complete non-stop day of competitive surfing.

Tiago Pires stood up to the pressure and bought home the bacon in front of a huge crowd at the spot he grew up surfing. Getting off to a very slow start Pires held his composure to answer the challenge thrown down by his opponent Brazilian Pedro Henrique. The lead constantly changed until with only minutes left Pires caught “the bomb”, tore it to shreds to receive an – 8.90 – and an unassailable lead to the wild cheers of his fans.

“I don't have enough words to describe my feelings at the moment,” began Pires. “I think I haven't touched the ground yet. I'm really really happy. I couldn't imagine a better feeling.”

”I was nervous in the final and everyone was here to support me,” he continued. “I was feeling a bit tired already. I just started to think to myself that I already had second place so why be nervous. I just pulled myself together and did my best. I was pushing my surfing a lot to be powerful and throw a lot of water and in the end it paid off.”

“Pedro is a very fast surfer. He's small and light and technical. It was hard because I knew he could have made the score. He is dangerous in these types of waves so my eye was on him the whole time.

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