As the old saying goes, “Wapahhh.” Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
Kelly Slater has done a lot with surfing. He’s one of the very few surfers that non-surfers around the world can name. Eleven world titles will do that, I suppose, as well as his dalliance with acting in Baywatch. He sits among the all-time sporting greats, rubbing shoulders with people like Lewis Hamilton, Adam Scott, one of the Gracie brothers (Rickson? Royce? I dunno), and Tom “freaking” Brady. And he doesn’t seem able to quit. He’s 53 years old now, but you wouldn’t know it by watching him surf.
The GOAT was recently awarded a wildcard into the Trestles event, despite (or maybe because of) the fact that his company, Outerknown, is a sponsor.
“Surfing this event obviously makes good sense with Outerknown sponsoring the event and celebrating our 10th anniversary,” he said in a WSL press release. “Trestles has been an ongoing great memory for the past 35 years since I won my first event as a professional there, had a number of great wins there while on Tour, and is my girlfriend’s hometown and a second home to me. So I’m looking forward to competing as a wildcard and surf against a top seed or two straight away.”
Although he is the GOAT and he has a million events under his belt, he didn’t win all those events by not training for them. He was spending some time in Australia recently and got in a bit of practice at Snapper Rocks, a place he’s got plenty of history with.
As is often the case with Kelly, he’s not riding a standard thruster. It’s a fun-looking surfboard; a little quad with a weird nose. And because Kelly is Kelly, he blew the doors off the wave.