Surely you didn’t forget about Gabriel Medina.
After winning his third world title in 2021, Medina pulled out of the first half of the 2022 Championship Tour, citing personal reasons. His return after the mid-season cut was short lived: An injury in Brazil sidelined Medina, and he was forced to watch the Top 5 compete for a world title at Trestles without him.
This year, he got off to shaky start, losing in the round of 16 in 4 straight starts. Not what anyone expected from the 3 time champ. Especially the champ himself. Rather than let a series of bad results send him into a spiral, Medina pulled himself together and regained his focus and composure heading into Margaret River, an event he’s never won. While his performances in the first few rounds were out-shined by John Florence, Medina paced himself, and peaked when it mattered most: in the final against Griffin Colapinto.
While Colapinto surfed well and nailed an 8 to open the final, Medina put up an 8 and 9.5 shortly after (plus two throwaway 7s), leaving Colapinto needing a 9 point ride at the end. Straight after Colapinto fell while going for a hail mary floater on his last wave, Kaipo Guerrero caught up with Medina — the first goofy to ever win at Margaret’s — on the back of the ski.
“It feels amazing, it’s a contest that I always struggled to win. I was really focused on that one. It’s a challenging wave, but I’m just happy to surf again, you know? I’ve been struggling for a few events this year. It was hard to get into a rhythm again. Now I feel like I’m back in competition.
“I’ve been having a good time here. I brought two good friends from home, and I have my coach here, Kingy [Andy King]. Just be patient. I knew it [a CT win] was gonna come. I had some tough losses, which put me down a little bit, but I’ve been working hard, enjoying my life and everything is paying off right now.”
For Medina, it’s his 17th championship tour win, and we’d be shocked if it’s the last one he wins this year. Medina is known to blitz the second half of every CT season, and there’s a strong chance he wins The Surf Ranch next month. Considering Medina and Filipe Toledo are the only two surfers to win a CT in Lemoore, that’s an easy call to make.
On the women’s side, Carissa Moore barely held on against Tyler Wright in a low scoring affair, winning her second CT of the season, and the 27th of her career. Just a staggering amount of wins. Having won the last two events between them, it’s setting up to be another huge battle between Wright and Moore down the stretch.
After the final, Stace Galbraith caught up with Moore on the beach.
“I think it’s been 9 years since the last time I won out here, and I was beginning to think I couldn’t do it again. I truly have the best team behind me, with all my family and of course my husband. They gave me a lot of confidence going into final’s day.
“I’ve been here in Australia for about a month now, and it’s been 5 days since we’ve been waiting for this final, and a lot happens in those days. Trying to stay on top of things, trying to relax — but then you can’t [laughs] — so now it’s a sigh of relief, like: work’s done, and now we can go home and have a little reset.”
With the mid-season cut done and dusted, we can focus on the race for the final 5 through the second half of the year. Next stop: Lemoore, CA. (And that will never stop sounding strange.)
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