Gabriel Medina's Not Flip Cork Thing Was Nuts Whatever You Want To Call It

So the Oi Rio Pro has been rolling on with not exactly the greatest surf ever and some disturbing side stories. But aside from all that the one thing everyone’s talking about, well, ‘talking’ is like quiet arguing right? Is Medina. He stomped a thing. He got a 10. The commentators and a bunch of media called it a backflip. Half the punters went, ‘Woooo! Backflip! Rad!’ the other half went, ‘Dude that’s so not a backflip.’

Thing is backflips, rodeos and most above the lip spins and rotes aren’t something we see a lot of.  Let alone ever do. And even the standard air reverse isn’t named correctly. Skate and snowboard types facepalm every time this happens. Spinning about in every axis is their domain. Not ours. 98% of surfers will ever even do a straight credit card air. Let alone a backflip.

So when the commentators automatically call ‘backflip’ you’ve got to give them some leeway. Even ex-pros, World Champs like Pottz, who pretty much brought the air game to the tour, ain’t ever done a rodeo. Or backflip. If they did drop a ‘whoa! Medina drops a corked 540’ then the bulk of the fans, those that aren’t in anyway au fait with skating/snowboarding would be all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Medina, Jordy, Julian, Filipe, John John, Albee and friends are the elite crew that live in this domain. It’s going to take a while for the rest of us to catch up…

Just so you know Wikipedia defines ‘cork’ thusly:

Spins are corked or corkscrew when the axis of the spin allows for the snowboarder to be oriented sideways or upside-down in the air, typically without becoming completely inverted (though the head and shoulders should drop below the relative position of the board).

Here’s a pointer which explains it pretty well:

And below is Medina’s move broken down. For it to to be a backflip it would be more on the vertical axis and he would be inverted under his board, more like the stuff Flynn Novak did and this example: