Tokyo Olympics: Owen Wright wins surfing bronze five years after brain injury

Australian surfer Owen Wright marked his incredible comeback from a traumatic brain injury by winning the first ever Olympic medal in surfing.

The 31-year-old was left with bleeding on the brain as a result of a wipeout by a huge wave during training in 2015.

It left Wright needing to learn to walk and surf again.

He has not only returned to the sport but has now made history by securing a bronze medal in Tokyo. Brazil’s Italo Ferreira later won the inaugural gold.

Ferreira beat Japan’s Kanoa Igarashi in the final with a score of 15.14.

In his bronze medal match, Wright defeated two-time world champion Gabriel Medina with a total score of 11.97, edging out the Brazilian’s 11.77.

In Olympic surfing, each wave a surfer rides is scored by a panel of five judges on a scale of 0.1 to 10.0.

The highest and lowest of the five scores are discarded, with the surfer’s score the average of the three remaining marks. The best two scoring waves are then added together to determine a total out of 20.

Agencies