Gabriel Medina shares important update on return to surfing tour post-chest surgery

The boy with the broken wing learns to fly again!

You’ll recall, a little over one month ago, Gabriel Medina’s dramatic life continued on its hurdy-gurdy spin when he was hospitalised after a wipeout on a three-foot wave.

The thirty-one-year-old Olympic bronze medallist, whom we admire for his courage, intelligence and absolute honesty, injured his titty in the crash at a Sao Paulo beach break and, soon after, went under the knife of orthopaedic surgeon Dr Breno Schor at the Israelita Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo.

The surgery either repaired the torn pectoral muscle tendon, a process that involves reattaching the tendon to the humerus if it was fully ruptured, or stitching up any partial tears to make it heal.

Doc Schor said Medina could begin intensive physiotherapy after an initial healing period and return to training in four to six months, roughly May to July 2025, and resume competitive surfing in six to eight months, July to September.

Not that Medina had any plans to hit the tour. After John John quit the 2025 carousel, Medina wrote, “I will come join a surf trip with you.”

Earlier today, Medina provided an update during an interview with Globo, a Brazilian media outlet, with a fan account sharing the examination on X.

Here we see the Doc Schor testing the manoeuvrability of Medina’s left wing and his ability to swing it to-and-fro using the titty, as well as assessing the strength in the atrophied pectoral muscle.

So far so good, as they say in France.

| Gabriel Medina via instagram stories

pic.twitter.com/cI8oSnikPN

— Portal Medina (@portalmedinabr) February 21, 2025

Medina has a history of overcoming injuries (a busted stilt in 2014, a knee injury eight years later) and personal challenges – his estrangement from mammy Simone and his step-daddy Charlie Serrano in 2020 and his marriage bust-up to Yasmin Brunet in 2022 which subsequently led to him withdrawing from the 2022 tour.