Brazilian Gabriel Medina pushed high-performance surfing to a new level at the prime-rated Nike Lowers Pro, demolishing one of the largest fields of high-end talents ever assembled to capture the $40,000 and a solid gold trophy valued at 30-grand more.

"I feel better than ever," said the 18-year-old ASP World Tour rookie after being carried up the beach by a passionate pack of Brazilian fans that invaded San Clemente, Calif. "I don't even know what to say."

That's okay...his surfing did all the talking.

Medina's relentless assault of aerial antics, blistering snaps, playful tail wafts, and sweeping carves were untouchable all week. His campaign included five of the top 10 highest wave scores, the five highest heat scores, and the yellow MVP jersey(voted on by fans) for three of the five days.

Winning at Lowers, the world's preeminent high performance wave, is a big feather in any surfers cap. For Medina, who broke into the ASP's elite Top 32 last year, it's feels an awful lot like a coronation.

Medina is widely viewed as Brazil's best candidate to bring home the country's first ASP world championship ever, and Saturday's win will give him confidence heading into next week's next world championship stop in Rio.

His performances also earned him overdue respect with American fans, who couldn't help but marvel at his surfing as he handily disposed of the beloved Dane Reynolds (right) twice, and doing so playing the very aerial game Dane helped make famous.

Before besting Ireland's Glen Hall (by way of Australia) in the final, Medina's closest match was with two-time US Open Champion Brett Simpson on Friday. Their duel was the highest scoring affair of the entire event, with both surfers earning 9.5 scores along the way.

Medina was behind the veteran Californian with 30 seconds to go, when he caught a left and launched himself high over the lip, where inverted and rotating, he soared back down to the mid-face and somehow spun-out of an incredible landing. Game over.

In the end his win was hardly surprising. Medina came into Lowers as a known threat. He won two world tour events last year as a 17-year-old rookie. In fact, he earned his first two tour wins faster than any tour surfer in history (yup, including that Kelly Slater guy).

And while 18-year-old Medina has packed on some muscle and added some power, he's got work to do to catch Slater in this year's race for the world title. He had a slow start to the season in Australia. Yet you can bet the Brazilian flags will be waving in Rio next week as Medina takes to the beachbreak surf that he's actually known for dominating.

Now that Dane Reynolds is officially off tour, and our secret fantasies of him winning the Quik Pro with his wildcard spot have been extinguished, all we have to soak up the tears are web-clips and photos.

The Nike Lowers Pro, which Dane entered last year, begins on April 30, and if he opts out of that, it could be until the US Open in August or Quik Pro France in October that Dane puts on a contest jersey.

In the meantime, here's a new Quiksilver edit of Dane Reynolds looking a lot like Burt Reynolds as he travels through Central America, Australia, and a few other locations.

So this is probably the only time I'd dedicate an entire post to a link, but Dane Reynolds just posted a new clip on Marinelayer, and HOLY SHIT. Watch it. Watch it now.

Right here. Come back when you're done.

He's still sticking giant airs, but now he's combo-ing them with tubes and fin-wofts. One particular wave at Rincon gets humiliated with 3 hacks, a giant blow-tail, straight into a huge alley-oop, straight into a fins-out layback tailslide.

Had that been in a heat, I'm fairly certain the judges tower would have exploded.

With a wildcard spot awaiting Dane at Snapper Rocks, and a likely matchup with Kelly Slater in 4 weeks, I just went from 6 to midnight.

Dane Reynolds, you can only hide from us for so long. The first two waves of your heat against Jules Wilson, Hank Gaskell, and Tomas Hermes, was the kind of poetry we've been fiending for. fiending!

Sunset Beach was in fine form today, and by that I mean she was a real pain in the ass for pretty much everyone. Big, lumpy, and moody. Triple-overhead sets stacking up on the outer-backyards reef and rumbling down the point into washy peaks with the odd gem that would double-up on the inside reef. Lots of paddling and lots of paddling, in between duckdives and more paddling.

Still, despite the chaos, Daynolds was able to put himself under the peak of two of the best waves of the day within the first few minutes of today's last heat, and surfed them each with the perfect pairing of casual simplicity and reckless abandon. 9.37 and 9.00. 18.37. The highest heat total of the day. By a lot. For example, Dane Gudang won his heat with a 7.67 two wave total today.

Ironically, the only other truly dominant display was in the day's very first heat, where Jordy Smith was able to nab two gems and crush them for the second highest heat total, 17.47. Jordy Smith was built to surf big Sunset, as evidenced by his past finals appearances, and as long as he doesn't blow a limb mid-heat again, look for him to keep his roll going.

As this swell backs down, and conditions improve, the contest could be back on tomorrow morning at 8 am local time.

Fresh off of an unexplained absence in Portugal that cost him what most people make in a year, Dane Reynolds just posted another video on his blog, that again shows him riding what appears to be a piece of shit, this time at shoulder high reeling rincon. It begs the question, where exactly is Dane going with this?

After a couple great (contractually obligated) performances two weeks ago at the Quik Pro France, Dane's first time suiting up for a heat this season (eventually losing a very close heat to Jordy Smith in Round Three), he once again slipped back under the radar, presumably back to his beloved Emma Wood, withdrawing from the Rip Curl Pro Portugal a day before the event.



The ASP will not tolerate such insolence, and has sent their goons to Ventura to actually break Dane's ribs, just to prove a point.

I lied. But that's not to say that the ASP didn't discipline the young man. After a string of no-shows and blue-ball-ings from Mr. Reynolds, the ASP actually voted earlier this year to increase the fines for such behavior. By 5 times. That's $25,000 for the first offense without notice. Dane had already racked up $2,500 for missing Tahiti (would have been $5k, under the former rules, but Dane gave them warning he wasn't coming, so $2.5k)

So I guess that's the second big effect Dane has had on the ASP, besides basing their entire judging criteria on his surfing, he forced them to change their rules to properly punish pro surfers who refuse to surf.

So after pulling this stunt again in Portugal, Dane now owes the ASP an additional $25,000. All in all, Dane is paying $27,500 to have someone else surf his heats for him. Perhaps Dane should have sent his filmer Mini to all the events to wear his rashie, paddle out on his bodyboard, and not care in heats. That would have been cheaper at least.

Now let us talk about Dane and his sperm whale.

Since his season has been spotted with minor and mysterious injuries, Dane had been seen surfing funky hand made fun-shapes whilst re-habbing. Understandable. But now, after 3-4 videos showing him riding mini-tankers while healthy, and in good waves, it seems that Dane is taken a liking to these anti-progression sleds.

If you have been paying attention to pop culture for the last decade, you may have noticed that many styles have reverted back to "Lo-Fi". Music for one. Bands like Washed Out, Dane's beloved Man Man, Dirty Beaches, the list goes on. Fashion. Way-farer sunglasses, mustaches. Hipster fashion revolves around wearing what your parents did when they were 12. Photography. Holga cameras, polaroids, and now the awful hipstamatic iphone app. (it hurts my soul to even type that).

Now, it seems that Dane has taken this Low-Fi approach to his surfing. No airs, no mind-bending reverses, no fin-ditches. Just rail to rail, high lines, and wounded gull all the way.

Its rad. Its stylish. It sucks, but in an awesome way.

And considering he won't be on tour next year (unless he applies for the injury wildcard) it wil be interesting to see how far he takes this stand against progress.

I suppose when you've leading the progressive charge for a while, the only interesting route is backwards.



Dane Reynolds Sucks At Surfing. from Michael Kew on Vimeo.