Today Is Your Last Chance To Mock Gabriel Medina For The Remainder Of 2019

By Saturday afternoon, the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro had already called off for Sunday. 

This gave everyone carte blanche to light themselves on fire on Saturday night. Well, everyone other than most of the competitors as they are now athletes and part of being athletic is being elusive enough to avoid Dick’s Sand Bar at 3 AM. 

The French are big on solidarity and so when Monday morning came, even the ocean seemed to be hungover. It says a lot about the conditions when there are tubes and Owen Wright musters up a 5.33 heat total. 

Mostly, it says that those tubes were few and far between. Or just bad. 

This morning was gray and warbly, then sunny and warbly, then partly cloudy and warbly. There were a few times when it started to look like it was getting kind-of-good before it would go back to being naughty. This seemed to be a theme throughout the day. Still, given the forecast, it was a good call to run and so the WSL rolled through Men’s and Women’s Round 3. 

Here are your power notes. 

Jordan Smith has been standing out by standing in tubes nearly every freesurf. He won the first heat — not by beating Frederico Morais, but by not losing to himself. 

A massive World Jeep Galaxy Leaderboard twist came when Filipe Toledo lost to Marc Lacomare. Marc is a tough draw for anyone in waves like this, and an injured Filipe fell prey. As a consolation prize, it appears as though Stab’s Editor and Chef Ashton Goggans has been giving him headwear tips. 

Technically, the biggest heat of the day was Wilian Cardoso vs Wade Carmichael. Regardless of stance, both of these guys conjure up visions of Mick Lowe. Wade won, mostly by doing turns because everyone knows real men don’t pull into anything under 6-foot. 

Julian Wilson tried some fun airs. Not sure if it was disrespectful to his opponent Jorgann Couzinet or respectful to the concept of progression in general. Or maybe he was just having fun. Great to watch. 

This was one of those annoying heats because you don’t want either surfer to lose. Here’s to hoping that Yago continues to do backside straight airs throughout the remainder of the event. 

Gabriel Medina was losing to wildcard Marco Mignot and need a 4.62 with a few minutes left. He caught a wave, got a little tube, did a turn, then claimed the fuck out of it. All up, it was very average — a 5.53 — but the claim made it a great moment for Medina haters as the webcast also showed Charlie screaming and jumping up and down in Adidas shorts on the beach. 

This is one last opportunity for anyone to make fun of him before he runs away with the title race and proves that he is greater than every other surfer in the world including John John’s knee. Insult accordingly. 

With a minute left in his heat, Leonardo Fioravanti got the second best wave of the day — an 8.33 to beat Slater. The tide was quite high, meaning the waves were breaking close to the beach, and Leo basically sprinted up into the crowd after. Everybody loved it except for the greatest surfer of all time. 

His holiness Italo Ferreira gets a mention in anything I write because he makes surfing looks so fun. 

Result wise, the Roxy Pro featured very few surprises. In fact, all eight of the Quarterfinalists currently sit within the Top 9 in the rankings, which is almost bizarrely consistent. Surfing wise, Courtney Connercoffinlogue got a 10 in the last heat of the day. It was sick. 

If the forecast holds true, tomorrow will be twice the size and offshore in the morning. One problem, though: the period jumps to 18 seconds. La Nord, which is out the back and a bit over from La Grav, could be on. That’s where Andy and Bruce surfed that final in 2004. 

Also, here’s a section from The Bruce Movie. Because if you don’t appreciate the combo of Bruce x Pipeline x Motorhead then no offense but go fuck yourself.