Congratulations Gabriel Medina for winning the Rip Curl Pro Search 2011 - Somewhere in  San Francisco!

OCEAN BEACH, San Francisco/California (Monday, November 7, 2011) - The new sensation of the tour - Gabriel Medina - has done it again! This time the 17 year old Brazilian beat the Australian Joel Parkinson (30) to stand at the top of the podium as the winner of the stop number 10 of the ASP World Tour. This was Medina's 2nd victory on the tour this year after joinig it on the mid year rotation - 2 wins out of 4 events he's been on!

After loosing to Kelly Slater on round 4, Medina has beaten Matt Wilkinson on round 5 making his way to the quarter finals for his revenge against Kelly Slater. He defeated the 11th times ASP World Champion by 14.50 to 11.10. During the semi finals, Medina defeated Taylor Knox securing his spot on the final against Joel Parkinson that had a hard time to defeat another Brazilian new sensation, Alejo Muniz by 14.94 to 14.34.

“I feel good and confident and I’m really happy,” Medina said after his Semifinals heat win. “It was hard with Taylor (Knox) and Kelly (Slater) and I’m just stoked. That was a tough heat and I knew it’d be hard. I just got my last wave and it saved me. Conditions are kind of fun, it’s cold, but it’s really fun and I just tried my best.”

During the finals, on 3 to 5 foot waves, Medina with his killer backside hacks has scored a 7.50 and a 9.0 on his fisrt two waves, leaving Parko clearly nervous to get the score he needed to change the situation. Parko scores were a 6.90 and a 4.0 (almost combo land).

“This has been incredible,” Medina said. “This is my second World Tour win and it has been great. I’m having fun on the Tour. I don’t know what I did out there, I just try to go big and it was great to have a final with Parko (Joel Parkinson). He is one of my favorite surfers.”

“It would have been nice to have won that won but I couldn’t find a wave out there,” Parkinson said. “Gabriel (Medina) has been absolutely ripping this whole event and congratulations to him. He’s got a huge future and I’m excited to watch him over the next few years. I just want to thank everyone here in San Francisco, it’s been amazing.”

The next and final stop on the 2011 ASP World Tour will be the Billabong Pipe Masters, which unfolds from December 8 through 20, 2011.

RIP CURL PRO SEARCH SAN FRANCISCO FINAL RESULTS:

1 – Gabriel Medina (BRA) 16.50
2 – Joel Parkinson (AUS) 10.90

RIP CURL PRO SEARCH SAN FRANCISCO SEMIFINALS RESULTS:
SF 1: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 17.33 def. Taylor Knox (USA) 14.27
SF 2: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 14.97 def. Alejo Muniz (BRA) 14.34

RIP CURL PRO SEARCH SAN FRANCISCO QUARTERFINALS RESULTS:
QF 1: Taylor Knox (USA) 14.96 def. Kieren Perrow (AUS) 12.83
QF 2: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 14.50 def. Kelly Slater (USA) 11.10
QF 3: Alejo Muniz (BRA) 13.83 def. Brett Simpson (USA) 11.83
QF 4: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 16.76 def. Josh Kerr (AUS) 10.93

RIP CURL PRO SEARCH SAN FRANCISCO ROUND 5 RESULTS:

Heat 1: Taylor Knox (USA) 14.67 def. Miguel Pupo (BRA) 12.83
Heat 2: Gabriel Medina (BRA) 13.93 def. Matt Wilkinson (AUS) 13.70
Heat 3: Brett Simpson (USA) adv. Patrick Gudauskas (USA) *Gudauskas withdraws due to injury
Heat 4: Joel Parkinson (AUS) 11.60 def. Owen Wright (AUS) 6.40

Written by Marcio Ferreira