"I'm not going to dwell on the negative part, I prefer to focus on the positive part.”
As South America prepares to be ripped apart following an attempt by Peru to have Brazil’s Gabriel Medina stripped of his bronze medal, focus has turned to quasi-Brazilian Tatiana Weston-Webb following her response to claims she was cheated of Olympic gold.
If you’ll recall, Tatiana Weston-Webb, who was raised on Kauai by an English daddy and Brazilian mama, missed out on the gold medal, which was subsequently claimed by the American Caroline Marks, after Weston-Webb fell 0.18 points short of the score needed to win on her last wave.
Brazilian surf fans online also pointed out what they perceived as a generous 7.50 for a Caroline Marks tube ride, numbers that could only be attributed to racism or fixing.
Now, in an interview just released, Weston-Webb has shocked fans and even had doubt cast upon the validity of her Brazilian citizenship, with her very un-South American response to the cheating claims.
“At the time I thought they (judges) might or might not give (the score that would be worth the gold). I really didn’t know. But, I managed to watch a bit of the heat afterwards and I really liked my last wave,” she said.
“I thought it was worth the score. But what can I do now? Am I going to be sad? No. I’m going to be happy because I managed to achieve a huge dream of mine. I’m not going to dwell on the negative part, I prefer to focus on the positive part.”
No such worries for Filipe Toledo, of course, who made worldwide headlines with his claim that Gabriel Medina was robbed of gold by virtue of the event running in the ocean.
Toledo implied an Olympic champion would only be valid if it was contested in a wave pool.