By Lincoln Feast
TEAHUPO’O, Tahiti (Reuters) -Dropping swell and passing squalls provided challenging conditions for women’s round two action at the Olympic surfing venue of Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Sunday, with Australian medal hope Molly Picklum eliminated by a resilient Johanne Defay of France.
Defay came up bleeding from the head after a heavy wipeout in her opening round on Saturday.
“I went over the falls and I went straight onto the coral, so I had four stitches and they gave me all the tests for concussion and stuff like that. So I took them yesterday and the results were so-so,” she said. “They made me do it this morning again and now they’ve been clear that I haven’t got a concussion, so we’re stoked.”
Picklum, a favourite in heavy surf, was sanguine about her loss and the smaller waves and windier conditions.
“Unfortunately, sometimes the waves don’t play the part,” she said.
“I think coming and debuting has been my biggest learning, that it’s something I want to be a part of and I hope surfing stays in (the Olympics) for more years to come so I get another chance to potentially bring home gold in surfing.”
China’s Yang Siqi got the better of Peru’s Sol Aguirre to advance to round three, having shown her mettle in larger conditions during round one and in training.
“I never felt afraid, just excited,” said Yang, who lives in the island province of Hainan but comes from Sichuan, far from the coast.
“My hometown is inland, so there’s only mountains, no sea, so surfing is quite strange to my people there.”
Surfers who won Saturday’s opening three-person heats in pumping surf and glorious tropical weather got to skip the day’s competition and the first head-to-head eliminations.
Weather forecasts for the coming days don’t look great for waves or winds, and competition is likely to go on hold for a few days at some point.
Men’s round two gets underway in the afternoon, with Italy’s Leonardo Fioravanti up against Tokyo Olympic silver medallist Kanoa Igarashi, while Brazil’s reigning world champion Filipe Toledo takes on New Zealand’s Billy Stairmand.
(Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Tahiti, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Hugh Lawson)
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