Bony Silveira used to compete on the amateur series in Brazil. And when you compete in Brazil you tend to know everyone else who is competing. “The capital for us is really Florianopolis in Santa Catarina, and when the boys come there to compete they all stay together. I’ve lived in San Diego about 10 years now and I met Gabriel a few years ago here when he was competing at the US Open. When he won the contest at Lowers I was there chairing him up the beach, I had him on my shoulders all the way to the podium. And you know, he is really a shy guy. He’s a lion in the water but outside he likes to be with his family.”
Three days ago, a video was taken showing Gabriel Media and Bony Silveira sharing a wave at Lower Trestles in California. The video was uploaded to the Internet, featured on The Inertia and the title read, ‘Gabriel Medina Drops In, Forgets To Knock.’ Harsh criticism followed with a general consensus that the reason for the drop in was that he is Brazilian. Here’s what Bony had to say.
“Yeah the media, they write some shit about Gabriel Medina. They write some stuff about him dropping in; the surfer he dropped in on was me! You know, when the boys come to town for competition I want to give them all the waves. They are here to compete and to train. They are working. When I take off on that wave I see Gabriel there and I scream to him, ‘GO Gabe!’ because I want him to take the wave. He takes off and does this crazy turn right over my head. I put my hands up like I am taking a photograph, stoked for him, and I think he is going to go right over me. He got stuck at the top and then you see in the video, he got caught on my leash and fall off.”
“I write to the guys at Inertia and say, hey come on, don’t talk shit like this. Gabriel is my friend and I tell him to go on that wave. It’s not right.”
Some of the comments that shadowed the video took on the attitude that it is in Medina’s culture to surf without respect for others in the line up.
“Medina looks like a complete idiot and should be disciplined by the ASP!!!”
“Brazilians have such an AWESOME reputation for being such gentlemen in the water, don’t they?”
“Is he too cool to be both careful and courteous? To be posted twice in one day doing stuff, lost my respect.”
As Bony and I watched a non-pro drop in on Coco Ho, causing her to miss an entire section in the time it took the guy to figure out she was behind him and pull off the wave, I asked, “Did they reply to your email?” “Not that I have seen.”
While waves like Lower Trestles and Snapper Rocks can host an unmanageable crowd on any given day outside of competition, the two weeks surrounding a World Tour event are especially manic. Earlier this year, Kelly Slater observed that the line-up at the Gold Coast’s elite wave was the busiest he’d ever seen while Freddy Patacchia had three holes punched in his favourite board after a collision with another surfer. You wouldn’t jump on the tennis court and ask Roger Federer to play doubles during a warm up and while surfing hosts a significantly different arena from other mainstream sports, maybe we should cut the surfers a little more slack. Especially if it was their mate who called them into the wave.
