World Surf League Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer returns to Instagram after troubling ten day absence; proceeds to erase South African great Jordy Smith’s historic Olympic accomplishment!

Cracks showing.

The World Surf League’s top brass had been missing from Instagram for a whopping ten days in the aftermath of the Surf Ranch Pro’s wild insurrection. Not a peep. Not an awkward physical encounter pressed into history like a daisy into a dictionary. As you well know, Chief Executive Erik Logan and his Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer have been riding high these past few years, issuing twice daily reminders of their chill on the aforementioned social media platform. No accolade too small, no bit of zany too… zany not to share with their thousands of followers.”You never know who you’ll run into while traveling. Championship tour surfers, and even a #quokka!” Logan posted on May 15 being a li’l goof.

“Looking good for finals day!! Come for the contest – stay for my jokes. I love this place,” Miley-Dyer posted on May 28, referencing a “joke” in the video wherein she chuckles over the mechanical reliability of Kelly Slater’s plow.

Ahhh May 28. The day before three top-tier Brazilian professionals, all former champions, questioned the judging and blew the doors right off the World Surf League.

Death threats followed and rage. A massive outpouring of pent-up over-it-ness, surf fans and professional surfers alike pouring gasoline on the already raging fire.

Yet silence from the top.

Not a sound.

Or, not a sound until hours ago when Miley-Dyer penned:

I am so very proud of our @wsl surfers who have provisionally qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics this week, through our friends at the @isasurfing ! The experience of being an Olympian and the attention it brings to surfing is a fantastic one for our sport and our athletes. We were so thrilled to have our reigning World Champions at the time take the Gold in Tokyo.

And can we all take a moment to think about @kaulivaast and @vahinefierro competing at home for an Olympic medal!? Crazy!

Of course, surfers like @kanoaigarashi and @jordysmith88 still have the chance to qualify through the WSL Championship Tour until August – as we are the Tier One Qualifier. For everyone not on the Championship Tour, there are still the 2023 Pan American Games, and the 2024 ISA World Games.

Oops.

South Africa’s Jordy Smith has already punched his ticket to Tahiti and many congratulations to him.

Huzzah etc.

I suppose increasingly awkward silence until Miley-Dyer realizes her mistake and attempts to rectify?

Or will South Africa declare war on the World Surf League too leaving us with another ten days of uncomfortable silence?

War is hell.

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Medina (pictured) worrying meemaw sick. Photo: Instagram
Medina (pictured) worrying meemaw sick. Photo: Instagram

Disease-stricken Gabriel Medina ignores bed rest orders after sensationally fleeing from ISA Olympic qualifier; horrifies grandmothers by partaking in push-up contest followed by dip in chilly pool!

Pain is weakness leaving the body.

Nobody, not one surf fan, even considered the possibility that our world could receive further rocking after the wild insurrection in Lemoore wherein three former champions, all Brazilians, denounced World Surf League scoring thereby leading to a word riot. Rage, recriminations, offensives and counter-offensives which have rendered the normally robust Instagram accounts of WSL Chief Executive Erik Logan and his Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer entirely mute.

Not one post since May 27.

Unheard of for the twin dynamos and more on that later.

But here we are, now, rolling incredibly on the swell of a new and almost equally wild tempest. Just yesterday it was reported that one of the aforementioned former champions, Gabriel Medina, had withdrawn from the ISA World Surfing Games currently reaching crescendo in El Salvador.

The Games, of course, are a qualifier for the much grander Olympics and Medina’s disengagement caused much wondering. Further investigation, though, revealed that the he, and current world number two João Chianca had also dropped out due sickness.

“In a joint decision between the athletes and the director of sports of CBS Paulo Moura it is with sadness that we announce that Gabriel and João will not continue competing in the ISA Games that is taking place in El Salvador,” an announcement read. “Gabriel had the flue two days ago and João also woke up with the flu and considering the proximity to the WSL event that counts towards the world title and the Olympic position we opted to withdraw them from competition… if the contest was not so close we would still be in the event but Gabriel Medina and João Chianca cannot risk it because they need to be one-hundred percent for the weekend.”

Derek Rielly concurred, penning, “A sound decision, if indeed the pair are reporting headaches, coryza (that inflammation of the nose’s mucous membrane), a temperature and great prostration, they must must rest, hydrate and so on lest the virus turn into pneumonia, pleurisy, nephritis, empyema or aught else of importance.”

Except hours ago Medina posted an Instagram story which appears to show him engaging in a sort of push-up contest, fast and furious, followed by a dip in a swimming pool horrifying surf fans, doctors and grandmothers who all know that drinking hot herbal teas and watching Friends reruns is the prescribed medicine.

Do you think his current sickness will morph into a much worse sickness ahead of the Surf City El Salvador Pro or, rather, do you think conventional wisdom regarding disease is just that: conventional And that Medina is showing wimps and mama’s boys how to muscle through like a MAN?

What is your personal approach to feeling ill? To bitch, whine, moan and carry on like a two-year-old with an ear infection or Medina up and ride?

More as the story develops.

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Open Thread: Comment Live as ISA World Surfing Games reaches dramatic finals day!

10,000 hours.

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Three-time champ Medina and current world #2 Chianca, floored by virus days Brazilian Surf Federation.

Triple world champion Gabriel Medina and #2 rated surfer João Chianca sensationally flee from Olympic surf qualifier due to mysterious COVID-like virus!

ISA World Surfing Game's biggest stars evacuate event amid fears the virus could turn into pneumonia, pleurisy, nephritis or empyema.

Earlier today, news that the highly fancied Team USA which included world champs John John Florence and Carissa Moore as well as tour leader Griffin Colapinto and Caroline Marks had plunged to 21st place overnight. 

Along with the withdrawal of Brazil’s Gabriel Medina and João  Chianca it had become obvious the long and confusing contest had drained the interest of the world’s best surfers whose eyes were fixed on the CT event which begins in two days and which is also in lesbian-unfriendly El Salvador.

The question we asked, therefore, was were tour surfers throwing heats through a lack of interest and making a mockery of the system by withdrawing mid-contest? 

Maybe no! 

In a statement released by the Brazilian Surf Confederation, the governing body of the competitive side of things down in that feisty joint, both Gabriel Medina and João Chianca had been withdrawn from competing on finals day due to a mysterious COVID-like virus. 

“In a joint decision between the athletes and the director of sports of CBS Paulo Moura it is with sadness that we announce that Gabriel and João will not continue competing in the ISA Games that is taking place in El Salvador.”

According to Paulo Moura,

“Gabriel had the flue two days ago and João also woke up with the flu and considering the proximity to the WSL event that counts towards the world title and the Olympic position we opted to withdraw them from competition… if the contest was not so close we would still be in the event but Gabriel Medina and João Chianca cannot risk it because they need to be one-hundred percent for the weekend.” 

A sound decision, if indeed the pair are reporting headaches, coryza (that inflammation of the nose’s mucous membrane), a temperature and great prostration, they must must rest, hydrate and so on lest the virus turn into pneumonia, pleurisy, nephritis, empyema or aught else of importance.

Prayers etc.

 

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Kelly Slater breaks eight-year silence on claim he deliberately launched seminal wave pool footage to sabotage Adriano De Souza’s world title celebration!

“Maybe we should’ve waited a week to sorta be politically correct or respectful enough to Adriano."

In the American winter of 2015, the Brazilian Adriano De Souza mounted a wonderful and brave charge to win the Pipeline Masters and the world title. When you saw his trembling little lips, it made you want to put a biscuit in his mouth and peck away the crumbs.

Did sport get any better? The unfancied and unpretty Adriano De Souza, throbbing to his own pulse, galloping to victory. But Adriano was gifted approximately 15 hours at the summit of the surfing world before the spotlight was turned off and aimed at Kelly Slater and the wave pool he, along with fluid mechanics engineer Adam Fincham, created near Fresno in California.

Chas Smith opined, “Kelly Slater is an absolute master of stealing the spotlight any time it drifts, slightly, from his handsome face. He was mad at me for having a cup of coffee and not talking about him and so he released a perfect video that is burning the Internet down.

“Worse still, though, is poor Adriano de Souza. Hours ago, literally hours, he was on top of it all. He was champion of the world, the first ever Brazilian Pipe Master too! He had etched his name into the record books and could sit back and be lauded for a hard-fought year. Except he couldn’t because when he woke up this morning the lauders were glued to computer screens not watching his year’s highlights but ogling Kelly Slater’s magnificent wave.

“I want to be frustrated but he is so good at it, so utterly masterful, that all I can do is stand, mouth agape, like everyone else. Oh, my mouth is not agape at the wave. It scares me in a way that I cannot explain. Like, really points to the end of the world somehow.”

Of course, it doesn’t matter what people call you unless they call you pigeon pie and eat you up. But did you think Adriano taking the world title determined the timing of the wave pool clip, and that it snatched a glimpse of the shadow in Kelly’s feelings towards Adriano?

Long ago history, I suppose, and a mystery never commented upon by the eleven-time world champ. Until now as Slater has finally cracked after sustained and wilting pressure from Emmy-award winning journalist and biz man Graham Bensinger.

First, says Slater, it wasn’t his fault the pool shadowed brave Adriano’s win.

“We’d filmed this on December five and I wanted to put it out right away, or two days later, and the team decided they didn’t want to interfere with the world title, distract from that,” Slater tells Bensinger. “The day after it (world title) was done they said, ‘Let’s post it now.’ And then everyone thought I was doing it to mess with the world title. Which wasn’t the case.”

In hindsight, maybe a little cruel?

“Maybe we should’ve waited a week,” says Slater, “to sorta be politically correct or respectful enough to Adriano… I don’t think any of us foresaw how viral the thing was going to be. We knew people were going to be, ‘Oh that’s super cool.’ But we didn’t know it was going to take on a life of its own.”

Slater also reveals the joint was busted after the first day and that it took six months to get it running again.

“We had a problem in our design at the time and, essentially, what we designed broke after the first day. We didn’t run another wave until May. We had to break down the whole thing and redo it.”

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