Bold Claim: Well-respected business magazine credits Gabriel Medina and “Brazilian Storm” with “professionalizing the sport of surfing!”

"Fifteen years ago you got out of the water and drank a beer."

But when you think of this, our current epoch of professional surfing, are you happy? Filled with joy? Positivity? Or do you quietly mourn that once upon a time when surfers were curse-mouth’d derelicts?

You know my position.

Cocaine (buy here).

But where do you stand? In front of your still wall-tacked poster of Andy Irons?

On a SUP with visions of Kai Lenny dancing through your head?

Somewhere in between?

Well, there is no doubt that surfing as a “sport” has cleaned right on up but who is to blame/credit with squeaky cleanness?

According to The Economist our eyes belong on Gabriel Medina and let’s absorb this hot take quickly.

Gabriel Medina, arguably the best surfer in the world, grew up in Maresias, a coastal town in Brazil known for its white sand and rolling waves. As a child in the early 2000s, he watched his fellow Brazilians compete in the world surf championships in Hawaii. They were known as “small-wave surfers”: scrappy but second-rate. Australians and Americans took home all the trophies.

That changed in 2014, when Mr Medina’s daring aerials and cut-throat competitiveness led him to victory. His generation, called “the Brazilian storm”, professionalised the sport. “Fifteen years ago,” says his trainer, Allan Menache, “you got out of the water and drank a beer.” Adriano de Souza, a Brazilian surfer who went pro before Mr Medina, introduced unprecedented discipline. Cross-training (eg, swimming and yoga) gave him and his compatriots an edge.

Etc.

And hmmmm.

Do you agree?

I’m going to blame/credit a combination of Kelly Slater and polo-shirt-tucked-in-to-light-blue-demin-held-together-by-braided-belt Dirk Ziff.

I’m going to call it “synergy.”

But you?