Surfing Waves

First time watching ASP finals on youtube and my God my eyes are going to bleed. The constant chat spam from Medina's fan. It feels like his fans are all kids. Was it like this every time when "insert name" is about to win the finals?

I don't really follow the celebrities but I was told that Medina isn't that popular as he isn't as friendly or charismatic as the others. However it definitely doesn't feel like it is the case here.

In Brazil sports is a big deal. Soccer is the main sport but any sport at all but especially one where a Brazilian is doing well is quite popular. I think it is national pride that you see perhaps not so common elsewhere. I think Medina is being coached to not be one of the boys so that he can maintain his game face at all times. I think Medina probably is easily affected by what others say so his coaches don't want him to be social to avoid dealing with the backlash of some errant comment. I had intended to respond to this long ago but never did. He probably isn't as charismatic as others too. A lot of I thinks here but that is what I think

"Medina isn't that popular as he isn't as friendly or charismatic as the others." - Well a lot could stem from doing interviews not in his native language. If most English speakers had to do a speech in Portuguese, how would they sound ? I read that he said he is very clumsy and was not with the in crowd socially. But once you put him in water he changes. Totally like a Clark Kent / Superman.

I have heard that he doesn't socialize with the other pro surfers. Most of them talk to each other during the contests but not Medina, he stays to himself or so I hear. This is what his coaches want him to do or so they say.

I haven't yet met a top pro surfer but certain aspects of my work means I get to meet quite a number of Britain's top sports people. To be quite frank they are all pretty boring. To be the top of a sport you need to be single minded and driven and don't really have much time for anything else.
We might have something to talk to the top surfers but non surfers would probably find slater pretty boring to be fair.

KS

waikikikichan wrote: Well a lot could stem from doing interviews not in his native language. If most English speakers had to do a speech in Portuguese, how would they sound ?

There are many non native English speaker in the contest and they seem to be fine. I've asked many Portuguese speakers and they said he is young and under a lot of pressure. All of them thinks Kelly era's has ended and is now Gabriel turn

two words .......... John John.

But Kelly ain't over yet. 40 years old and pulling 720 airs ? Remember ( maybe some don't ) he's taken on many generations of champions. He surfed against Tom Curren ( one of my favorites ) in 1990 !! Medina got some major respect at Teahupoo, but he hasn't won the Eddie.

So you think John John could be the next star? I like him, he was really friendly when we went to see him in Supertubos.

Kelly has passed his prime time. Of course he is a legend but I don't think his body can cope with it.

Medina is an incredibly talented surfer. I am not surprized he won the WCT and in fact surprized he didn't do better last year. But then you don't win with personality, you have to surf. John John is really great too but he didn't do as well this previous year or the one before that as I thought he should have. He seems to have a great personality but it doesn't help him win contests.

I've thought for awhile that John John is going to get it together soon and get huge. Looking forward to it, he's a great guy.

Yeah JJF is so awesome he does stuf that has everyone wondering how he did it. Did you see the Surfer poll awards best maneuver? He did this no hands aerial where the board came off his feet by about a foot and he still landed it. I found it herehttp://www.surfermag.com/surfer-poll/2014-best-maneuver/

Oh gosh, how did he land that? I couldn't bend like that on dry land and get back up haha. Wish that would have won, that was sweet.