BRAZILIAN surfing heavyweight Gabriel Medina has delivered a devastating assessment of the risk of shark attack in Margaret River, saying he does not feel safe going in the water around the tourist Mecca.

Medina, who was the first Brazilian to win a world title in 2014, told his six million Instagram followers overnight that he did not feel safe training or competing in Margaret River and that he wanted to leave his opinion “before it’s too late”.

The comments from the 24-year-old are a blow to the organisers of the Margaret River Pro, which has been rocked by the dual attacks on surfers at Gracetown, 12km north of the main event site at Prevelly.

Medina has the biggest following of any professional male surfer on the World Championship Tour – more than superstars Kelly Slater and John John Florence combined.

His post was liked almost 130,000 times.

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“Today they had two shark attacks on a beach close to where we're competing,” Medina wrote.

“I do not feel safe training and competing in this kind of place, anytime anything can happen to one of us. Hope not. Leaving my opinion before it's too late! ”

Medina’s compatriot Italo Ferreira also took to social media last night to express the same misgivings.

The current equal WCT leader, Ferreira described the situation in Margaret River as “very dangerous” and asked whether the World Surf League, the governing body that runs the WCT, was prioritising athlete safety.

“Two shark attacks in less than 24 hours here in Australia, detail, just a few miles from where the event is being held,” Ferreira posted.

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“Very dangerous do you not think? even so, they keep insisting on doing steps where the risk of having this type of accident is 90%, so I ask: is not the safety of athletes a priority?

“We already had several alerts. Life goes beyond that! I hope it does not happen to any of us. I do not feel comfortable training and competing in places like this!

The surfers’ comments come days after Hawaiian superstar John John Florence posted his close encounter with two sharks in Margaret River days before the event was due to start.

And while other surfers offered more moderate opinions on yesterday’s events, the remarks by the two Brazilian competitors are a body blow to the State Government’s tourism strategy.

Figures released earlier this month painted a bleak picture of the sector’s health, with international and interstate visitor numbers both in freefall.