OWEN Wright and Sally Fitzgibbons continued their maiden Olympic Games preparation in Tokyo by charging into finals contention at the Surf Ranch Pro.
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Culburra Beach's Wright is currently sitting in the all-important final eight of the men's competition after the first two days of competition, at the sixth leg of the World Surf League Championship Tour.
Wright's two-wave score, incorporating both a left (6.90) and right-handed (7.37) ride, was 14.27 - placing him in seventh heading into the final day.
Leading the way for the men is Brazilian pair Filipe Toledo (17.80) and Gabriel Medina (17.00), ahead of Japan's Kanoa Igarashi (15.33), Brazil's Yago Dora (14.37), North Stradbroke Island's Ethan Ewing (14.54), United States' Griffin Colapinto (14.53), Brazil's Adriano de Souza (13.80) and Brazil's Italo Ferreira (13.70).
Ewing and Colapinto have already completed their three right and left surfs, with the rest of the top eight still to complete them when action resumes on day three.
While Gerroa's Fitzgibbons, fresh off wins at the Rottnest Search and World Surf Games, is sitting in third in the women's event, thanks to respective right and left-hand scores of 6.80 and 8.13 - for a combined 14.93.
This saw her finish behind France's Johanne Defay (16.63) and Hawaii's Carissa Moore (15.17) and just ahead of Brazil's Tatiana Weston-Webb (14.83) - with all four of those athletes still having a right and left attempt up their sleeves.
Owen's younger brother Mikey finished the event in 34th position, while sister Tyler withdrew from the event, to concentrate on her health and wellbeing, earlier in the week.
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