Little known glitch in the end-of-year points calculation dooms three-time world champ Medina.

The World Surf League, surfing’s governing body which is currently for sale if anyone wants the shrivelled grapes from that withered vine, is again under siege after an online sleuth claimed Gabriel Medina was “robbed” of a place on Finals Day at Lower Trestles.

You’ll remember in mid-August when, in rapidly deteriorating four-foot waves, surf fans fondled themselves into a state of near nervous collapse after Australian Jack Robinson muscled his way through Medina to win the Tahiti Pro and a spot on Finals Day.

Now, and via the shaper-centric podcast The Dust Up (episode, “What shit luck for Gabriel Medina”), John ‘Robbo’ Robertson reveals Medina’s place in the showdown was effectively stolen thanks to a little known glitch in the scoring system.

Correct me if I’m wrong and the old eyes do tend to glaze a little reading rule books, contracts and so on, but the old way of calculating the end of year ranking was to drop your two worst events and add up the result of, say, the other eight if it was a ten-event year. 

Robbo says, correct me if I’m wrong etc, that a surfer can drop one event in the first half, but not in the second, presuming they made the mid-year cut. Which means, it pays to come on relatively late in the season points wise. 

To wit, 

“Gabriel had a cracker first half of the year. Worst result was a 332o, a ninth maybe, and the back half of the year he had a shocker, worst result a 1330, a seventeenth at Rio and he had to keep it. That’s a 1990 points difference. The result (had he been able to throw away the 1330 not the 3320) would have taken him from sixth to fourth position in the ratings. Would’ve been in the top five. The only surfer who had a worst result in the back half of the year was Ethan and  Ethan’s was an injury.” 

Robbo gives a pretty good example of how the new way of calculating end of year points can go real bad. 

“Imagine if in the first events your worst result was a quarter-final. You’re top three in the world going into the back half the season. Going into the back half of the  season, you win two events…get injured and you miss the final three events. So the quarter-final is a throwaway.” 

Theoretically, and possibly, the surfer who dominated the year before tweaking their ankle or whatever misses Finals Day. 

Fascinating yes? 

Listen here, comes on real early in the poddy after the intro. 

"It was a war zone in there!"

The eleven-time world champ is currently staggering around on crutches following serious hip surgery to repair what Slater describes, in an informal couch interview with Kai Lenny post-finals Day, as a “shredded” labrum. 

The hip labrum, if y’didn’t know, is a ring of cartilage that lines the rim of the hip joint socket. It deepens the socket, which gives stability to the joint, acts a sorta shock absorber when you rum and jump and helps lube the joint. A small but real important part of the machine. 

Slater, who’s fifty-one, said his hip has been real bad ever since he did the splits on a wipeout at Sunset thirty-two years ago and thought he’d snapped his femur. A few years later he was towing in Tahiti and  doing flips off the back of waves when he landed weird, hurt his hip, and then in the summer of 2000 he went in for surgery to clean up the mess. 

Twenty three years later he was back on orthopaedic surgeon Warren Kramer’s operating bench for a complete Labral reconstruction, again, not a labiaplasty, although can you imagine how stunning Slater might look with a little Chanel lippy in tender beige given creepy Bruce Jenner’s metamorphosis to gorgeous Caitlyn Jenner?

“They took a cadaver’s labrum, inserted it and tied it to my bone,” Slater told Kai Lenny, the boy with the mild, defenceless eyes of a lamb who, one month ago, mobilised his over one-million followers after supplies of insulin to fire-ravaged Maui were blocked by government bureaucrats.

“Warren said my Labrum was basically shredded from end to end…there were bone spurs on the femur head…I also had a lot of scar tissue. Warren got in there and said it looked like a war zone, said he had to get in there and chop through the woods.” 

Pain, said Slater, is a regular companion. 

“It would explain to me why I don’t want to surf a lot. I’m in pain a lot. It affected why back radically, trying to get to a position I internally rotate and my hip throws my back off. I already have pretty extensive scoliosis.” 

Slater’s take on Filipe’s title win and the behaviour of the other attendees is also exceptional, as you might imagine.

Essential.

"Nothing but a facade pretending there isn’t a huge elephant in the room. Wall of positivity but no one’s buying it. It’s cringe."

The World Surf League is under siege tonight after an innocuous post celebrating Caroline Marks’ first world title lanced a boil of fury among surf fans seething over tour leader Carissa Moore’s second successive Finals Day failure. 

The WSL wrote, 

Caroline Marks just became:⁣

– Only the fourth Women’s World Champion since 2006⁣

– The first goofy-foot Women’s World Champion since 2005⁣

– The first mainland American

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by World Surf League (@wsl)

All true and a beautiful moment for a kid who had to step away from the tour for a year to deal with unspecified but “recurring medical and health issues.” 

But WSL’s surf fans, many of whom, I’d predict, have yet to feel the sensation of wax underfoot, mutinied en masse in an orgy of fury not seen since the damn Cawnpore massacre in 1857. 

“What a bloody terrible caption for this post. What are you telling the others it’s time to retire. If it wasn’t an Olympic year it would not shock me to see Carisa step away from the WSL while this final five nonsense continues. And I say this as someone who is really happy for Caroline and picked her to win. This post though is in very poor taste.”

“You guys are changing the history of world surfing with bizarre rules. you already stole two world titles from Carissa Moore. Enough, right?”

“Carissa was the true champ! Bring back the old format. Marks just won trestles, but not the circuit.”

“Just tell us that it’s the end of this bullsh*t format era. Champions deserve to be fully supported by the fans, wich is not the case BECAUSE OF THE WSL. Athletes deserve better, fans deserve better. Pro surfing this days divides instead of federate…and it’s definetly getting worst.”

“Once again this completely unfair system has stolen a title from the real champ Carissa More. That’s 2 already. Stop this nonsense. You don’t see anyone supporting this format online.”

“Should be Carissa on 7. So shit, all for viewer ratings. When are WSL going to acknowledge what Carissa achieved this season?”

“Carissa should be celebrating a 3 peat. Best all year and lose title cause a subpar day at trestles.”

“The people’s word champ” 🏆. Marks the Trestles champ on 1 day. Great achievement for both. And I am sure the humble Riss will honor Marks title, and Caroline herself will undoubtedly know that Riss won overall this year and last.”

“Congratulations @wsl. You invented a format that prevents the best surfer of the year from becoming the champ.”

“End of wsl if they don’t go back to old format and end season in Hawaii, the birthplace of surfing, Carrissa is the true Champion.”

“Yeah right! @wsl people, keep saying this format gives opportunity to others surfers to have a shot for the world tilte but all sums to a 1 event,…and in the USA 🤔”

“This doesn’t make sense and its unfair for that 1 surfer that has been proving all year why the number 1 is number 1.”

“Now imagine if all the other sports adopted this stupid idea/format? U can’t right? Because it doesn’t make sense and it’s Not fair. Stop this format, please.”

“This is a very tone deaf post. Read the room. It’s like WSL is just trying lose as many fans as they can these days.”

When the WSL’s own Jess Miley-Dyer poked her head above the parapet she was met with a fusillade of anger as the blood lust reached fever pitch.

“read the room”

“old format back. You ruined the surf”

“Carissa got robbed two years in a row! It’s painful to watch.”

“We are all praying you end up with E-Lo 🙏 congrats on the trestle win Marks and congrats on four years in a row tittle wins Carissa.”

“Typical WSL hologram comment. Nothing but a facade pretending there isn’t a huge elephant in the room. Wall of positivity but no one’s buying it. It’s cringe. Everyone sees the truth for what it is, Carissa should be world champ.”

“Read the comments. 95% of fans don’t like the format. We all see @rissmoore10 as a champ. Changing history of surfing not crowing the best surfer all year for a profit format for you guys to keep your jobs is a ridiculous insanity.”

Again, I quite enjoyed all the tension with my midnight snack as I watched the drama unfurl, curled up like a baby in front of a heater in my jammies, fiddling away as well as fiddling with the keys. I certainly wasn’t involved in such a way during any of the other events.

Why so much hate?