Last year, the Nike Lowers Pro was dominated by young Brazilian aerialists and that trend continued this Saturday, May 5, as Gabriel Medina won the event final against Glenn Hall.

While the 18-year-old Brazilian is off to a bad start on the 2012 World Tour-- finishing 25th and 13th in the first two events-- the talk of this contest was, surprisingly, his potential as a World Title candidate. That's a premature claim given that Medina has only proven himself at small-wave venues in the past. However, he affirmed this week that he's unstoppable in the right conditions.

Medina was clearly the in-form surfer of the event, posting the highest heat totals of the contest. His aerial surfing was varied, and connected by way of smooth rail-turns, which clearly distinguished him from the overstated, unstylish typecast of Brazilian surfing.

The final heat of the contest epitomized the battle that's been raging all week between rail-surfing and aerial-surfing. During the opening moments of the heat, Glenn Hall, the Australian expatriate representing Ireland, bumped rails with Medina in a battle for priority. And although neither surfer was cited with interference, the final still proved to be a one-sided affair. While Hall's backhand attack was enough to move past John John Florence and Jeremy Flores in the late rounds, he faltered in the final, posting just a 10.87 to Medina's 15.67.

Medina was soft-spoken after the win, commenting, "Glenn was surfing really good. I don't have words." The quiet acceptance stood in high contrast to the cheering, flag-waving Brazilian crowd.

As the World Tour heads off to Rio de Janeiro, Medina is in prime position to carry his momentum home with Brazil behind him. Still, the question of whether he can transcend his role as a small-wave aerialist remains.

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.

A fresh pulse of south swell greeted the remaining competitors at the Nike Lowers Pro on day 4. With two rounds of man-on-man heats to dust before tomorrow's finals, an incredible day of surfing took place.

There were some high-scoring affairs and heartbreaking losses suffered. But after the dust settled, perhaps the most unexpected performance of the event was from Dane Reynolds.

Dane has been showing a new competitive fire that we aren't accustomed to seeing from him. He won two early morning heats on days 2 and 3, in dominating fashion for a self admitted anti-morning person. Equally shocking is the fact that Reynolds has been employing heat-tactics-- hassling, paddle battling, and getting backup scores-- all things that he's refused to do in the past. Dane scored a 9.8 against Granger Larsen for a wave he normally would have blasted to the skies on. But after falling on several airs and needing a score, he connected a series of turns, loosening his fins for the highest single wave score of the event.

Still, Dane says he didn't feel confident until his last heat today, where he had a combined heat total of 18.63. During a post-heat interview he commented:

Jodie Nelson: "You're surfing with a lot of style and confidence. You seem really poised. What's the difference with this event?"
Dane: "I've been feeling really sketchy this whole event... I'm not sure what happened but this afternoon I felt a lot better. Finally."

Dane will now face a red-hot Gabriel Medina in quarterfinal 3. Medina beat Brett Simpson in nail-biting fashion today in what Shea Lopez called one of the best heats ever at Lowers.

Expect the contest to finish Saturday, May 4.

patrick hourihan's photos from the event here.

Mark Occhilupo is no stranger to a comeback. He famously resurrected himself to win the 1999 World Title after spending the better part of the 90's battling personal demons. Now, at age 46, Occy seems to be mounting another charge.

At the start of the year he penciled himself into a couple of WQS events using his 'past world champ' status to try and earn a spot in the Triple Crown in Hawaii. Then, in March, at the Margaret River Prime event, hwent on a tear in the pumping swell, making it to the semi-finals. Going into the Lowers Prime, Occy sat at 39th in the World Rankings.

Three days into the Nike Lowers Pro and Occy has been one of the most talked about surfers of the event. A convincing victory today over 3 WCT-level competitors in the round of 48, and it seems like even Occy is starting to believe.

"Now that I'm getting a good result here... you know...what am I thinking... everyone's asking me that... If there was a mid-year cutoff this year I'd be awfully close.. I'll just have to have a look at the schedule.."

The Occ will be surfing again tomorrow in heat 8 of the round of 24.

photos by patrick hourihan, more over here.



Nike Lowers Pro No Losers Round of 24:
Heat 1: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) 17.13, Glenn Hall (IRL) 15.03, Jeremy Flores (FRA) 14.77
Heat 2: Nat Young (USA) 17.17, Sebastien Zietz (HAW) 13.86, Tomas Hermes (BRA) 13.26
Heat 3: Tanner Gudauskas (USA) 17.87, Gabe Kling (USA) 15.50, Taylor Knox (USA) 12.23
Heat 4: John John Florence (HAW) 16.23, Cory Lopez (USA) 15.67, C.J. Hobgood (USA) 13.06
Heat 5: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 19.53, Daniel Ross (AUS) 13.06, Dane Reynolds (USA) 12.33
Heat 6: Granger Larsen (HAW) 18.43, Heitor Alves (BRA) 17.00, Brett Simpson (USA) 14.74
Heat 7: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 15.17, Jay Thompson (AUS) 13.60, Blake Thornton (AUS) 13.20
Heat 8: Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 15.53, Mark Occhilupo (AUS) 13.83, Nathan Yeomans (USA) 8.57

Nike Lowers Pro Round of 48 Results:
Heat 7: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.90, Granger Larsen (HAW) 16.77, Mitch Crews (AUS) 13.93, Charles Martin (GLP) 6.87
Heat 8: Brett Simpson (USA) 16.60, Dane Reynolds (USA) 15.30, Heath Joske (AUS) 13.80, Jesse Mendes (BRA) 12.27
Heat 9: Heitor Alves (BRA) 17.70, Daniel Ross (AUS) 13.27, Alejo Muniz (BRA) 13.00, Kiron Jabour (HAW) 7.66
Heat 10: Jay Thompson (AUS) 15.60, Patrick Gudauskas (USA) 15.13, Conner Coffin (USA) 11.90, Jano Belo (BRA) 10.10
Heat 11: Adrian Buchan (AUS) 15.10, Nathan Yeomans (USA) 14.53, Romain Cloitre (FRA) 13.77, Hank Gaskell (HAW) 11.87
Heat 12: Mark Occhilupo (AUS) 14.10, Blake Thornton (AUS) 13.83, Tom Whitaker (AUS) 10.17, Michel Bourez (PYF) 6.40

Ignoring the fact that it's part of an advertorial campaign for black licorice-flavored booze, this is an impressive clip of Nathan Fletcher and his Tahitian monster. They do a great job of getting some thoughts out of the always soft-spoken Fletcher as he recounts his wave while watching it on film.

Last week, we posted footage of the Teahupoo mega-swell, which was arguably the most documented in history. Here's another example of the hype-machine at work: