“Brazilian surfers when we complain we get letters with threats of punishment. The others get public apologies.”
Yesterday, the WSL issued a rare mea culpa over what was deemed a poor judging decision at the surf major at Snapper Rocks, begging forgiveness from the sporting body’s dozens of fans.
“The Head Judge and Nat met for a heat review and watched all of the waves from Nat, Mikey and Charly. It was recognized and acknowledged that Nat’s 4.03 was in fact underscored and the wave should have been in the 5 or 6-point-range,” wrote the WSL. “Even though it was not the 7.21 that Nat needed to get into an advancing position, we still wanted to acknowledge the error.”
The sport’s judging has long been an issue, as it always will, although the noise made by Brazilian world champs Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo and Italo Ferreira, and various death threats from Brazilian surf fans, has brought the issue into relief.
His outburst followed a long proud line of Brazilians complaining about losing, notably in El Salvador and at Surf Ranch.
What is interesting is why the WSL has now made a point of examining a largely pointless moment in a reasonably pointless heat, at least in comparison to a CT event, instead of, say, reviewing Bells, El Salvador and Surf Ranch.
Which is, for the Brazilian surf fan, further proof the WSL exists only to advance the cause of the two-percenters, white Californians etc.
Cue cries of an anti-Brazil bias.
“Amazing how WSL chatted to the surfer and posed publicly, in a CS battery. And with the countless controversial batteries with Medina, Italy, Toledo, among other Brazilians? Does Nat Young’s being from the United States weigh any weight? Will it be????”
“I’m sorry but it’s not a mistake it’s bad influence and @wsl only did it because the athlete is American. This kind os “mistakes“ have been happening over the years with the Brazilian athletes in a large scale and @wsl never review a heat or came up with apologies. This institution don’t have my respect and clearly don’t have respect from the athletes neither. @wsl needs to be reformed with better professionalism.”
“Brazillians Surfers when we complain we get letters with threats of punishment. The others get public apologies.”
And, then, Gabriel Medina swings into the spotlight.
“I’m here for the comments,” he writes, prompting 2000 likes and 100 replies.
The highlight of the latest imbroglio, howevs, has been memes from @pauly_matt_war_shore.
Heady days.
