The Portuguese João de Macedo and Alex Botelho today qualified for the final in the Nazaré event of the giant waves world circuit, which will also count with surfers from Brazil, Australia, Spain and South Africa.
The Portuguese Alex Botelho was in great prominence, winning the second heat with the highest score of the competition so far (26.33 points), having even achieved a wave to brush against perfection (9.33 points out of 10 possible ).
In this competition of World Surf League (WSL) are counted the two best waves of each surfer, with the best score to be multiplied by two.
Basque Naxto Gonzalez (26.03 points) and South African Grant Baker (21.60 points) followed Alex Botelho into the semi-finals while Hawaiian Kai Lenny (20.33 points), American Nic Lamb (14 points) and Australian Jamie Mitchell (2.50 points) were eliminated.
In the first round of the semi-finals, Brazilian Lucas Chianca came in first (25.63 points), followed closely by experienced Portuguese surfer João de Macedo (25.40 points).
Australian Russell Bierke (21.47 points) was also up, while Hawaiians Nathan Florence (20.76 points), Billy Kemper (18.23 points) and Ian Walsh (18 points) were on the way.
Nazaré Beach receives for the third time a test of this circuit, which has two more stages: Mavericks in California and Jaws in Hawaii, with the waiting period running until March 31, 2019.
Australian Jamie Mitchell won the first edition of the Nazarene competition in December 2016 and the Brazilian Lucas Chianca last year in February.
Each heat of the event, which has a monetary prize of 100,000 dollars (88,213 euros, at the exchange rate today), opposes six surfers for 45 minutes, qualifying for the next three rounds and a prize of 1,000 euros for the protagonist of the most challenging wave.
