Gabriel Medina is one of the most popular and richest Surfer who was born on December 22, 1993 in São Sebastião do Caí, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He beat He beat out Kelly Slater, arguably the greatest surfer of all time, to win the 2014 ASP World Tour Championship., probably the best surfer of the past to take home this year’s ASP World Tour Championship.
Medina has been with his shaper Johnny Cabianca since 2008. Johnny Cabianca, a Brazilian living in the Basque Country, is one of the world’s most renowned surfboard shapers. Medina is using about 100 surfboards a year. Cabianca who previously shaped under the Spanish label Pukas, started his own brand in 2015. Medina’s first victory on a Cabianca Surfboard was the Quiksilver Pro France 2015.
Medina won many Brazilian amateur championships, becoming champion at the Volcom Sub-14, Quicksilver King of Groms, Rip Curl Grom Search, besides conquering the state championship three times. In California, he was second at the Volcom Internacional Sub-14, and in Ecuador, vice-champion of the Amateur World Sub-16 Championship. At 14 years old, Medina was already at the finals of the Paulista Championship, became the Paulista Junior Champion, and surfing the World Qualifying Series (WQS) 6-star event Onbongo Pro Surfing 2008 in Ubatuba, where he managed to defeat his idol Adriano de Souza, aka Mineirinho.
His birthplace was Sao Sebastiao, Sao Paulo, Brazil to Simone Medina. His siblings include Sophia Rodrigues and Felipe Medina.
He’s credited as being the second person in history to perform a backflip the board, but there has never been any in the course of competition.
Gabriel Medina Pinto Ferreira (born 22 December 1993) is a Brazilian professional surfer, also the 2014 and 2018 WSL World Champion. Medina joined the world’s elite of the World Surf League Tour in 2011, and in his rookie year he finished within the top 12 of the ASP (now WSL) World Tour at the age of 17. In March 2014 he won the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast. Media sources credit him as being the second person to have executed a maneuver called the “Backflip”. Medina also became the first person ever to land this move in competition.
