Dark days down under.
The champagne is not yet dry on Johanne Defay’s singlet, Bud Light still cool on Griffin Colapinto’s nightstand after the Frenchwoman and American man punished their respective Australian challengers at the MEO Rip Curl Pro in Portugal. And what a day of professional surfing it was. Peniche, the lone European stop on tour, had a rough time producing contestable surf throughout the waiting period but the waves on that final’s day were as fine as any beach break, anywhere.
Gabriel Medina, the lone Brazilian, was vanquished in the semifinals, evaporating the last bit of Brazilian storm cloud and Australians licked their lips in hope of a return to surfing superpowerdom via Ethan Ewing’s luscious bottom and Tyler Wright’s medical miracle mouth.
Alas, both were whipped, and whipped badly, in the final’s by the aforementioned Defay and Colapinto leaving Australian media thoroughly depressed. The Guardian, which has its home base in London but also a paper of record in the Lucky Country, due commonwealth issues, put a grey face on the affair this morning. The extremely sad headline blaring “Tyler Wright and Ethan Ewing blown away in Rip Curl Pro Portugal finals.”
“Blown away” maybe even an understatement.
Wright, The Guardian wrote, was “well beaten,” Ewing “outclassed” and the whole final’s both “anti-climactic” and “soddish.”
Ewing seemed to be stumbling under the burden of letting his nation down, declaring, “It was super-cool to surf the final with Griffin, we’re really good friends. We haven’t had that many man-on-man heats together but they’re always super-fun.”
Doctors, meanwhile, are on suicide watch after Tyler Wright’s medically expanded airways failed to deliver on their promise though Wright, herself, put a brave face on, likely feeling, “No one on the face of this earth has ever suffered more than me. I am an inspiration to all.”
Dark days down under.
