The exodus from tomorrow's Surf Ranch Pro continues as another top-rated pro surfer withdraws from the WSL's only wavepool event.

Hottish on the heels of today’s report of a top-rated surfer describing the Surf Ranch Pro as “an abomination, anti-nature, soulless”  and following the withdrawals of Jordy Smith, John John Florence, Julian Wilson, Kolohe Andino, Michel Bourez and gals Tyler Wright, Lakey Peterson, Bronte Macaulay and Macy Callaghan, is the news that two-time Pipe Master Jeremy Flores has also withdrawn from the contest. 

Reunion Island-born Flores, who is thirty-three and the current world number eighteen, made the announcement in a tweet this afternoon. 

Unfortunately i had to pull out of the Surd ranch event due to some health issues & fatigue. The last few months have been non stop, between the OZ leg & the ISA in El Salvador. I’m going to recover & I’ll be back in the water soon ! Good luck to all 

https://twitter.com/floresjeremy/status/1405742742655827968

The news is another blow to whatever prestige the WSL might attach to the event, many surfers of the belief, which is correct, that if y’ain’t Italo, Gabriel or Filipe, you’re gonna lose early and who wants to be sitting around in Lemoore when it’s 111 (44 degrees) and the stink of 100,000 doomed cows from nearby Harris Ranch fills the air? 

Am I right?

Even the New Yorker’s Bill Finnegan, who was fresh off wining the Pulitzer for Barbarian Days when he visited the event in 2018, pronounced it as “unexciting…..the pool made surfing feel tame, domesticated.” 

The highlight of that year, I think very safe to say, was a billboard on the road leading to the Ranch celebrating the diversity of talent at the WSL.

Despite vowing never to cover the event again, Steve “Longtom” Shearer has agreed to write an analysis of each of the three days.

“God yes, I have to,” he wrote to me via SMS. “Just to see what Kelly does.”

Brunet refused Olympic credentials ‘cause she “has nothing to do with surfing.”

The Olympic campaign of two-time world surfing champion and gold medal favourite, Gabriel Medina, has been rocked after the Brazil Olympic Committee refused his request to bring new wife Yasmin Brunet to Tokyo. 

In an interview with CNN Brazil, Medina, the world champ in 2014 and 2018, said Brunet, whom he married in February and who travelled with Medina through the Australian leg of the tour, was refused Olympic credentials ‘cause she “has nothing to do with surfing.”

“What about Tati’s (Tatiana Weston-Webb) husband?” said Medina. “I’m just questioning why I can’t take Yasmin. It’s the people who help me. It’s not because it’s better, it’s because they’re people in my daily life. Will I have to travel alone? Why just me, you know?”  

Each surfer is allowed two people on their coaching staff which means, says Medina, he should be allowed to bring his wife. 

“Each athlete is taking their own people. Italo (Ferreira) is taking a friend who helps him, and with me they are making it difficult. My life changed. I had another coaching team, another structure, two people who no longer work with me.” 

It ain’t just the Brazil Olympic Committee’s fault; the Japanese have made a point of restricting family and pals of athletes, as well as tourists, from the Games. 

Medina’s new coach, the wonderful Andy King, has been granted the necessary credentials. 

Much theatre from Medina in recent months, including wild speculation he had formed a loving union with soccer superstar Neymar Jnr (“It’s not normal to see two men like this”) followed, shortly after, by the apparent split with his parents after his surprise marriage to actress and model Yasmin Brunet and the ensuing online feud between mammy Simone and Medina’s sister-in-law and wife (“I hope you reflect on all the evil you are doing!”).

Despite everything, Medina says he’s still hot for Tokyo. 

“Since I was a kid, I’ve watched the Olympics and supported all Brazilians regardless of the sport. In the end, what I wanted to see was Brazil winning medals, moving up in the ranking and passing other countries. Just thinking about it gives me more motivation. I may even feel some pressure, but I use pressure as a motivation to get the medal.”