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Gabriel Medina is a professional surfer who won't stop at anything to win. There are unwritten rules in most sports that you just don't do and is just a common courtesy to everyone involved. Whatever you do you play hard but always fair and no funny stuff.
Gabriel has a tendency to steal other surfers waves when competing in the heats and is known as burning your opponents. Basically the wave doesn't count and you score the advantage. A surfer who picks a wave doesn't expect the wave to be hijacked by anyone else and it is a first come first serve opportunity.
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Medina did this exact same thing at Jeferries Bay a few months ago to another competitor and he went through. This time it back fired as his fellow surfer also went through and beat him in the final. Sorry isn't good enough as the surfer who was penalized heard Medinas dad shouting from the beach to burn him. This was planned all along and possibly how he thinks he can deal with any threat.
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Everybody can see what happened and he lies as that is not what happened. This was the first time he pulled this move two months ago. This tells us he doesnt care and should be barred from entering any more events if he does it again.
I am glad it backfired on him in the end as this is a dick move to pull. Class will always win in the end and it tells you a lot about someone's personality. He is Brazillian and the funny thing is he was surfing against another Brazillian. Both have been selected to go to Japan as surfing is now an Olympic sport.
Officials say what he did was wrong ,but not illegal as it was tactical what he did. These are unwritten rules that you just don't do and could find himself on the out if he tries it again for the third time. Abiding by the sporting code is what makes sport and someone needs to kick some manners into this idiot before others think it is just normal behavior.