I’d probably piss off my editor and a bunch of readers if I didn’t talk quite a lot about Medina in this piece. It’s just that, well, every single media outlet that has any interest in professional surfing will be doing exactly the same, and I only have 800 words on the nose to describe the day’s actions and I have so much of wonder to talk about! Strider’s amazing description of the sand (‘it’s fine, and it moves around a lot’), Pottz’s in-booth wincing at Jadsen Andre’s possible ankle injury exacerbation on a floater wipeout, and remarkably bringing the story back to himself (“so dangerous, so so dangerous. I would have torn my hamstring right there…”) and a host of other amazing hilarities, and that’s already 155 words, including this sentence, as well as the title and sub-title.
But first, Medina.
His first air reverse, back at the Barra Da Tijuca venue, was incredible, and was awarded a 9.4 for a single move. While it was breathtaking and possibly the best move of the event thus far, two things took the move’s value away for me.
Firstly, two years ago Medina was pulling these moves off consistently. Just as innovative, with just as much speed and flair, but he threw them out there at every opportunity. So while it was great, it was actually what we have been expecting from him for a while. He just hasn’t had all the opportunities.
Secondly, his next move totally wiped the memory of that move from the collective surfing consciousness, as he launched into a legitimate upside-down double-grab flip – to ride it out and score a vaunted 10-point ride.
While it does bode well for the Brazilian goofy-footer at this event, what it does break down is the gloriousness of high-risk rewards that we all want to see. In essence, Medina posted a 19.4 heat total for performing only two major moves, and leaving Alex Ribeiro in the dust.
Following on from this, Jeremy Flores tried the exact same approach, albeit with less success. J-Flo went in to his heat with the goal of performing the massive moves, and while not having an array of air moves he does have the Kerrupt Flip in his arsenal. Unfortunately the approach didn’t work for him, and his multiple Kerrupt attempts were unsuccessful, and he went down to Jack Freestone and his more bankable air moves.
In direct contrast, the clash between Matt Banting and Kolohe Andino was tight but standard backhand three-turn two-to-the-beach style surfing that saw the two natural-footers surfing well, but scoring nothing higher than 7-odds. Backhand cracks, hooks under the lip and floaters in three-foot lefts just don’t have any of the timbre of flips and rodeos and full rotations, with 4th ranked Andino not doing enough to advance.
Talking about rankings, yellow jersey-adorned Matt Wilkinson bowed out earlier on in the day by losing to Deivid Silva, making his earlier event performances edging dangerously close to flash-in-the-pan results. Matt gave a wave away at a critical point in the heat, and it turned into a banker for Silva, much to Wilko’s utter chagrin. Not that anyone wants him to falter, or doubts that he can win again, it just seems that the steel-trap grip that he had on the system seems to have slipped enough for it to be problematic.
Seabass however, continues to gouge away, beating Keanu Asing in a power-heat, and keeping him in the running for that yellow jersey going forward. He does need a massive result to overtake Wilko on the rankings, but he’s good with those massive results, as displayed at Margaret River.
A very popular injury wildcard climbing to the top of the ratings? That would be a first, and just another great addition to what is turning into an amazingly topsy turvey first half of the Championship Tour. You can’t script this shit.
