WSL Misspells "Jack Ronbinson" in Official Final Five Announcement

Oops.

In the official Instagram announcement of the upcoming World Surf League Finals, to be held at Lower, Trestles September 8th – 16th, someone made a whoopsie.

Jack Robinson, the west Australian hard charger and pre-heat bellydancer, who had a stellar season with two wins (Pipeline and Teahupo’o) barely made the cut into the one-day, winner-take-all event, despite a knee injury, which forced him to withdraw from his home event at Margaret River. And the WSL did him dirty with an unfortunate typo.

“Jack Ronbinson.”

As of publish time, the post with the spelling error is still up, but it will likely be taken down. In which case, see below for screenshot evidence.

Commenters were quick to call out the error:

“Who is Jack Ronbinson? You guys can’t even get his name right? Imagine the NBA writing ‘THE NBA FINALS featuring Sneph Curry’? OMG I can’t. 🙄🤦🏽‍♂️”

“it seems that the marketing people are as incompetent as the judges”

“it’s so embarrassing for the WSL.”

But the controversy didn’t stop there. With number three ranked surfer, Ethan Ewing, suffering a serious back injury during a Teahupo’o freesurf - watch the wipeout here - his presence in the WSL Finals is questionable. However, in a contentious move, if Ewing can’t compete, the next ranked surfer (Gabriel Medina) will not replace him.

And folks chimed in about that, too:

“I appreciate Ethan deserves his spot, but it he can’t surf through injury that spot needs to be filled.”

“Are y’all not gonna let #6 in the final 5 due to Ethan’s injury?”

“if Ethan is injured and cannot compete, #6 should be moved up. If anyone misses any other event in the season, the rankings don’t stop. Why change it now?”

“I think Medina should be allowed in. (1) he will get the views up (2) he excels in ALL conditions which makes him a more worthy champ if he wins, leads to my next point (3) hes the only guy that can shake flips tree significantly (not taking it away from the others)”

Stay tuned for more drama.

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