Was Gabriel Medina Underscored At The Olympics? The Mayor Of Rio De Janeiro Believes So
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Photo by Ben Reed/ISA

Was Gabriel Medina Underscored At The Olympics? The Mayor Of Rio De Janeiro Believes So

Twitter becomes the official platform for Olympic surf debates.

elsewhere // Jul 29, 2021
Words by stab
Reading Time: < 1 minute

Ah the Olympic Games, the sporting event where we glorify a third place finish.

Owen Wright and Gabriel Medina went head to head a few days ago, battling it out for surfing’s first-ever Olympic bronze medal. Wright ended up winning the event, which led to numerous claims that Medina was underscored for his airs.

Passionate surf fans including the mayor Of Rio De Janeiro took to twitter to voice their opinions:

The tweet reads:

“If surfing had entered as an Olympic sport at Rio 2016, I would never have allowed what happened with Medina in Tokyo.”

The use of smiling emojis lets us know that this is just a joke, and Paes does not have the intention of time traveling, rallying the votes to get the sport of surfing into the 2016 Olympic Games and then coercing the judge’s panel into adding an extra 0.21 points to Medina’s scorecard.

The video below shows a comparison of Gabe’s back-side air reverse to Kanoa’s frontside rotation, which makes complete sense. Plus, the landings were identical, and neither one was noticeably cleaner, check it out:

In conclusion, we have learned that surf scores are subjective, and we could make arguments out of anything, really. Here’s my take on the significance of surfing’s Olympic debut. Leave a hurtful comment below, and let’s have a full-blown internet fight about it.

Click here for the full story.

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