Cover photo: WSL/Dunbar

Uruguayan Marco Giorgi won today the Taiwan Open of Surfing, a 3.000-point QS that catapulted him 43 places in the ranking, to position 68, which, in addition to giving him 15.000 dollars, leaves him with a good pre-qualification for 2020.

This is the second 3.000-point event that the Uruguayan has won, having won in Santa Cruz, Portugal in 2017; it is also the second QS event won by a surfer from that country in the history of the sport.

At the tournament held at Jinzun Harbor in Taitung, Giorgi had a marathon day yesterday, Monday, in which he finished in first place three times and did the same today. In the quarterfinals he beat the Spaniard Andy Criere, in the semis he beat the Frenchman Marc Larcomare and in the grand final he defeated the Australian Mitch Parkinson.

The final was extremely close and was decided in the last five minutes when the Uruguayan needed 6,33, he landed a good right and did a good aerial that the judges awarded with 6,67 that Parkinson could not reach. The final sums were 11,57 (6,67+4) to 9 (11,23+6).

"I'm so happy, I can't believe it. It was a tiring couple of days, it's a war out there, I'm so happy, I can't believe it," said the Uruguayan in the broadcast after emerging victorious from the water. He also said that he couldn't enter the events in Hawaii because he had a bad European leg and that he traveled to Taiwan to maintain the challenges and the chances of entering the higher level events.

"My approach to the event was to be relaxed out there, I didn't want to push things too much. I was tired as well and my back was hurting the other day, I woke up with my back broken, but it all happened step by step," he said. He also said that during the series one of his strategies was to compete closely with Mitch Parkinson, he said he saw him doing those aerials and he showed that he was also capable of doing them.

The Taiwan tournament was the penultimate men's QS of the year, after the Sunset 10.000m that started yesterday, the new 2020 QS will take place, which has stages of 1.000, 1.500, 3.000 and 5.000 and the new challengers. Between January 5 and 10, the first stage of the year will be held in Hainan, China.