Gabriel Medina vs. Glenn Hall. Drop in gate 2015.
In what will forever be referred to as #dropingate2015, Glen Hall has already left his mark on the shiny, new WSL. For those unaware of what happened, here’s a little rundown:
In the waning moments of their heat, Gabriel Medina drops in at the peak of a crappy waist-high wave and dips out the back – very, very close to Glen Hall. Maybe too close. And this is an elimination round here, folks. As a result, Medina received an interference call.
Hall seems like a nice enough guy and surfs well, but it looks like he may have used a tactic more commonly used in soccer to secure his victory.
It’s hard to see on the replay if Medina made any contact that would have impeded Hall’s ability to take off cleanly. The only thing I could think that happened was maybe he got tangled in his leash, but one would think Hall would mention that in his post-heat interview. Medina had the heat score to win, but lost because of the interference. It was a bad interference call. And it halted the defending champion’s charge out of the gates in 2015.
Medina was very angry in his post heat interview, but rightfully so. It begs the question, what exactly is the rule? You can’t get very, very close to the other competitor?
