Uh-Oh!
Long flight home for care. Buenos Suerte Adriano!

Hope he can still float.

Haven't seen any updates of his situation on twitter yet

So it's three full days later and this story hasn't even been mentioned on surfline. If it was kelly, dane, taj, joel etc etc .... hell even a gudauskas or knox languishing far down the ratings, this would have been reported almost immediately. The anti-brasil bias is no more palpable than at those hallowed pages of sell-out-surfing-journalism mediocrity. It really doesn't matter what your opinion on Adriano's style, character or behavior in or out of the water and/or the manner in which he won in Rio to take the number 1 spot is. The fact remains that he is number 1 on the WCT, he just suffered an injury that sounds like it could potentially jeopardise his year... and the anglo surf media doesn't give a rats ars. No wonder the Brazilians get their backs up so quick. Nearly no-one in the Anglo surf media even pretends to pretend otherwise. No money in it. innit?

Seriously... do a google news search for adriano de souza injury stories... nada.

just this one 3 days ago as far as i can find. or am i missing something and ranting for nothing?

Nope. I think your right Grug.
Can hear a pin drop out there when it comes to De Souza's knee injury.

Sounds like he was trying to do a Parko and keep it quiet.

That is possible. I could be hanging a little to much unwarranted shit. If your info came from something as low-key and lucky as that then it could well be that the other outlets havn't heard anything concrete enough to report on.

It does seem a little strange though. Some steroids, testosterone and HGH with rehab should fix him up in time for jbay. It's not like they're testing for it on the wct...

Thanks for the update Stu. I saw the article on Surfline too. 4 days after you broke it here is pretty amazing. And as you said, there are no other reports in any other english-speaking outlet.

The bias is certainly real and it pisses me off. I don't have a problem with surf commentators/journalists/fans heaping shit on certain aspects of style that many brazilian surfers tend to share (as long as they show consistency by heaping the same piles on other surfers with funky styles). Style is subjective, the Brazilians tend to share certain attributes that differ from the majority of US and Aussie surfers. Again, it is subjective and everyone is entitled to there opinion. Though it is a little bit wave/condition dependent, I myself generally prefer the Aussie/US styles. I think they more often than not show a little more fluidity, power and individual style than some of the top Brazilians.

The problem as I see it is 'Respect'. The Brasilians simply don't get the respect and recognition they deserve from the anglo surf machine. Many, certainly not all ( by the looks of it, a good proportion of the new Brasilian breed currently destroying the junior and WQS are not your cliched Brazilian favella kids), of these guys have had to deal with an infinitely harder social/life situation to get where they are yet they have still managed to acquire the skills, fitness and work ethic to slog it through the qualifying rounds, WIN their way through to the top tiers and be highly competitive. Of course they surf different. They've learnt to surf in a completely different fucking paradigm, and they rip... just with a different style. Yet the surf media attempts to ignore them at best, and at worst, snipe and undermine with the barest concealment whenever they find a modicum of success. Adriano being number 1 REALLY irks a lot of the dickhead heads of state in the surf world. No-one fawns over them no matter how well they do. I have seen Heitor Alves get boned up the ars by the judges heat after heat after heat without nary a call of 'bullshit' from the commentators or anglo media. When it is the other way around, the howls can't be blocked out. I'm not saying Heito is a top 10 surfer, but he is WAY better than he is given credit for (then you get that cock-smoking, brick-stupid, yankee pretty boy post-heat interviewer douchebag saying shit like 'you know Heitor, all the other surfers really respect you man. They think you rip. How does it make you feel to know that you have the respect of your peers?'... 'ummm... yeah like wow, the white guys think i'm can surf. ummm great. cause being on the CT wasn't enough to let me know that i'm a decent surfer'. How fucking condescending can you get? I've heard the commentators say the same kind of thing) The same story goes for a handful of the other guys to varying degrees and Tiago gets the same treatment being from Portugal.

They simply arn't marketable in the english speaking surf world. So they barely exist. They are just annoying insects stealing some of the potential sunshine from the industry's white knight cash cows. SImply put, they cost the big guys money (and will increasingly do so), the big guys can't do shit about it without looking like spoilt racist twats so they do the next best thing and try as best they can to ignore their presence on tour. Surfline leads the charge as it has it's dirty little greedy whorish hands steaming-apple-deep in pretty much every corporate entity invested in the english speaking surf world.

I'm over-exaggerating for effect. But the truth is not all that far behind. I've held my tongue on many other discussions about this issue as I wanted to look for long enough to confirm mine and many others suspicions. I;ve been looking for a few years now and it's impossible to ignore. Now i'm a sympathised to eh brazilian cause. The inevitability of a major shift in power over the next 5 years or so in world surfing has the big guys nervous. They need to find a way to make these guys marketable outside of Brazil.

Sorry for another essay rant.

@grug
Brazilians are definitely working their way up the ladder.

Good news then! Glad to hear injury isn't serious.

Grug - your rant sounds like poetry to me. Ben (Matson) should hire you as one of his editors. Cheers mate!

Gee Grug, take a valium and have a lie down mate. Unfortunately taking a shot at the judges doesn't add up. The brasilians have won three of the six Prime events this year, one of the three CT's and currently have De Souza sitting number one on the rankings. Heitor sitting a very respectable 22 in the CT. I agree they get a bum deal within the media but maybe the jounalists have had the odd experience with some of these lunatics in the surf.

Grug, try dealing with the fuckwit brazo's in indonesia. They aint all broke either, the ones who can surf are more often than not from rich familys and were never going to have to work either way.
Show me a Brazilian who can do more than one trick? Show me a Brazo with the flair and power of Fanning? Show me a Brazo with the style of Parko? Show me a Brazo with the complexity of Slater? Show me a Brazo with the hunger of Andy (RIP buddy)? Show me a Brazo with the attitude of Dane? They don't exsist!
There is no way DeSouse beat Owen and the judges know it too.
When the CT season hits full swing in the back half I doubt Adriano or any other Brazo will be sitting at the top.
P.S. They realy are a problem in the surf.

@ Grug, great read.

Admittedly I don't give the tour much thought, but it is noticeable. Especially when an event is broadcast on cable TV and the commentators don't have many positive words for Brazilian competitors or fans!

That said, Boohoo De Souza. Have another Red Bull

@ beserra

No worries mate. Probably need to edit my own ramblings a little better before I edit anything else though...

@ksurf

A valium would be great. The judging has been better this year. Rio was an anomaly with a serious homecrowd advantage. If anything, de souza deserved it just to even things up a little. In the heat, i don't think he deserved it at all. Heitor has improved his surfing and finally gained enough respect to be scored more fairly. They couldn't ignore him for ever. The horde of brazo kids in the wqs events are impossible to underscore. Their surfing is simply too good for the judges to ignore. I'm not saying the judges have, in the past, or currently, 'blatantly' underscored the brazilians all the time either. I have just seen too many line ball decisions go against them to ignore. And like I said, no-one (commentators, non-brazilian fans) seems to complain when it occurs, whereas similar decisions the other way are met with loud indignation and outcry even from the 'non-biased' anglo media.

@non-local

I'm sorry non-local, I have only surfed a little with brazilians in Brazil in fairly uncrowded out of the way breaks on small days where they were chilled out... Not many down here in Vicco either that i have seen. So I will take you're word for it that they can be whatever it is you are accusing them of being in the water. Can't comment. By my count though, the percentage of non-brazilian cockheads in the water down here is pretty damn high... Every Brazilian on the CT and QS can do far more than one trick. Most of them can do multiple airs and multiple turns. A few of them have serious power and a few are pretty damn handy in the barrel. You havn't been watching very hard. I would say de souza has the flair of Fanning and may have the power in a few years if he keeps working on it. None of them have Parko's style... gee what a surprise? Does any surfer on the planet? Alejo is fairly stylish in my opinion. Same thing with Slater... is any surfer as complx as him? And how would you or us know anyway as a) i'm guessing you don't speak Portuguese and thus don't read proper interviews or articles about these guys and b) i'm also guessing that you don't know them personally... Most of them seem to have the competitive hunger of Andy. Just generally without the immature temper tantrums and hedonistic, self-indulgent drug dependency (RIP. That is not a cheap shot just a hard reality). Dane?! What kind of competitive surfer in there right mind would want the attitude of Dane? I love Dane's surfing and respect his approach and creativity outside of surfing. Just because it also equals marketability and makes him 'cool' is irrelevant. If you want to win, you don't want Danes attitude.

And half the reason you think all of this is because you have so much exposure to the lives of these guys through their manager and marketing teams lenses... You get told again and again what to think of them. You understand what they say in interviews. You have more in common with them. The media makes myths out of them because they make money from the myths. There are stories with the Brazilians too. Quite possibly more interesting ones... You just don't here them polished up by the companies.

I think Owen won that heat too. It was bad judging and a shame on his part. I don't think Adriano will last at the top this year either.

@fishheadsushi

He doesn't need another red bull! I hate adriano's constant claiming... though I like how her gets under Slaters skin.

Grug,
mate do you have a brazilian wife or something?
They are all just one trick pony's. DeSousa will never have the flair of fanning, not in a million years. Slaters complexity is in the surf and no brazo or anyone else for that matter will ever come close.
I agree about the cockheads in Victoria though, there are heaps of them, the ones that blow in from Melbourne on any given day that is. Don't pay out on Andy either because apart from what you read in the media he was a 3 time world champ that took it to everyone in all conditions.
Adriano also doesnt get under slaters skin, I saw and chatted with Slater at bells directly after his loss to Adriano, which by the way didnt look like that much of a win from the beach, and he was in no way rattled by it at all.
Dane's attitude is one of the best for a surfer to have, he surf the day the way he feels it, comp or no comp he manages to be real amongst all the plastic surfers.
Sunny manages to deal with them the right way when he has had enough of them.....lol
Grug you seem to need to watch a bit closer and take the brazilian blinkers off bro.

Non-local,

It sounds like you have had some horrific experiences with Brazos while in Indo. In the name of the nation, I apologise for that. There is no question that we come across a bit agressive and many times display poor education in places that are traditioanlly very popular to us.

The good news is that we tend to go to the very same obvious destinations, so it is easy to avoid us. The bad news is that we are not the only ones who behave like this. Here are few examples:

- Floridians in the Caribean
- Californians in parts of Baja
- Israelis in the Maldives and Sri-Lanka
- Hawaiians at Desert
- French in Mauritius and Reunion
- Australians in many parts of Indo

and the list goes on and on....

Another comparison to be really fair - I guarantee you that you will be less dropped in on in Rio than I will be in Sydney. This is a fact! Not to mention that you will be welcome in Brazil with a smile by the locals, get free beer and be treated pretty nicely. I don't know if the same applies here, unless I am in the country side. Had an amazing experience in Tassie for example and in many parts of NSW.

Bottom line is, there are good and bad apples every where. You just see many Brazos out there bc we have a huge population, almost 10 times bigger than yours.

As for the tour, who cares? ASP is still such an amateur institution with so many holes anyway. Aussies in general surf better than anyone else, period - and I don't need to see the tour to come to this conclusion. All I need to witness is a 50 year old, chubby from too many beers, but still ripping like grom. You guys rule the sport of surfing.

Peace!

That was very diplomatic and a great read.

Will surfing become a battleground at both local and wild out of the way surf destinations?
When does it become necessary to bring your own enforcement crew?
I've seen it in many places, and it doesn't appear to be getting better.
Great things to ponder for a once enjoyable hobby/sport in this day and age.
Go surfing - and hog as many waves as you can until a bigger surfer/gang -tells you/disables you/ so you cannot surf anymore.
Great hobby/sport?