Could this be Kelly congratulating John John on 2020 Olympic Qualification come December? Or maybe even the other way around? Photo: Cestari / WSL
Professional athletes like to be coy. I’ve never understood why or how they think it serves them in most cases and there are certainly plenty of exceptions to the rule, but traditionally, when it comes to big news and the kinds of questions common folk are burning for answers to in the sports realm, going directly to the source is usually the last place you’ll get a straightforward answer.
John John Florence isn’t being coy about his knee, his desire to compete in the 2020 Olympics as a member of Team USA, and what may be required of him to get there. Let’s not call this a “mortal lock” and it’s still short of the man emailing us to confirm that he’s coming back, but the following sentence is more than just an ominous hint:
“…I’m excited for the opportunities ahead, Pipe Masters and Olympics right around the corner,” he wrote over the weekend on Instagram.
Doubling down, the WSL promoted John John’s same Instagram post the next day. And while it’s easy to forget with this being social media and all, the only group that’s better at playing coy than a professional athlete is the employer of a competitive athlete. They’re not exactly an outside source running entirely on speculation here, even if it is reporting the news in selfie mode…
So we’re all still waiting on the official announcement, but get your hopes up anyway. In August, Florence said in an interview with ESPN that he’d consider coming back early from his knee injury to compete in the Pipe Masters if Olympic qualification were on the line. It was just six weeks into his recovery with a lot of time between that conversation and December. And now here we are.
“It is still a goal of mine to qualify for the Olympics, and I want people to know I am working toward that goal,” he said in August. “Sometimes I’m not as outspoken to the public as others, but I am trying my hardest to heal as fast as I can to be back in the water and competing again, and I want them to know that. I was in such a good mindset and place in my career [before this injury], and I am really enjoying doing everything I can to get back to that position. And we’ll see. You never know what is going to happen. It could go either way at this point for the Olympics and for Pipe, but having fun, short-term goals like that is cool for me.”
So what’s the math? Incredibly, the Hawaiian is still ranked in the top-10 and 3,130 points ahead of the third-highest ranking American surfer, Kelly Slater. Whoever finishes as the second-highest-ranked American on the Jeep leaderboard will join Kolohe Andino on Team USA, who provisionally qualified in Portugal, for the 2020 Olympics. Behind Kelly are Seth Moniz, Griffin Colapinto, and Conner Coffin, and Florence essentially knocks each of them out of contention with every progressive heat he surfs at Pipe. But it’s essentially Slater v. Florence. At best, Slater will lose one of his posted scores (equal 17th from Tahiti or France), leaving him with 28,760 points to work with. The worst-case scenario for Florence would be sitting out Pipe altogether or getting dropped in the elimination round while Kelly makes it at least to the quarters.
…In this decade alone, Kelly Slater’s failed to at least make it to the quarterfinals or better at Pipe just twice. So yeah, if John John wants to be an Olympian, he should make sure he’s in the water come December. Knee brace and all.