Kelly Slater’s command of Cloudbreak on that final day was Godlike. Photo: ASP/Kirstin
Like lambs to the slaughter…death, taxes and Kelly…all the world’s a stage, and the top 35 are merely his players…use whatever tired cliche you want, but know that on Wednesday we saw something that was surely beyond the powers of any mortal man. When Jordy Smith won in Brazil and capped it with an ironic Christ pose (a reference to the Christ statue overlooking Rio De Janeiro) we laughed. When Kelly struck the same pose in a ten-foot Cloudbreak cavern while riding a tiny 5’ 9” quad, we wailed and fell to the ground in prayer. Had the sky turned black at that very moment, a lightning bolt descended out of it into his head, and the wave continued to barrel several kilometers past the Cloudbreak reef, no one would have been surprised. Kelly’s command of Cloudbreak on that final day was Godlike. And today we tremble in the knowledge that he walks among us. But, and this may be at the risk of eternal damnation, being a journalist, a subscriber to science and a surfer, I have a duty at least to attempt an argument against his omnipotence.
A quick skim of the facts from the contest doesn’t do much for my argument that Kelly Slater isn’t God. The event began typically for the champ when he missed the start of it to attend the birth of his nephew. But he missed that too, and, so instead, he promised the newborn he’d return with the Volcom Fiji Pro trophy. As Round One kicked off without him, I watched the horizon warily expecting, I dunno, a hovercraft maybe to appear, perhaps captained by Richard Branson and with Kelly on the bow clasping an American flag and pointing toward the lineup. That didn’t happen, but by the time the event reached the business end, there were once again signs that the universe was conspiring for him. It was a near-perfect 19.3 out of 20 that he defeated Sebastian Zietz and Jeremy Flores with in Round Four. Among it a ten-point ride in which Kelly, on what was undoubtedly the biggest wave of the day up until then, took off grabbing his rail before letting go as a giant chandelier landed in front of him, only to come flying out from behind it like a superhero escaping a burning building. We eyed him suspiciously. “Prepare the bonfire,” someone yelled, “and slit Al’s (Merrick) throat just to be sure.”
The consistency with which Kelly out does his competitors with either skill or outlandish showmanship, spurs this kind of irrational thinking. But you have to understand how he approaches surfing. It’s not fun for him in the way the rest of us understand fun. Kelly has turned surfing into a science. He meticulously studies the waves he’s about to surf, takes mental notes on where the sets are breaking, how many waves in that set hit which parts of the reef/sand and concocts strategies both for how he’ll surf the wave and where he’ll sit in the lineup accordingly. When you’re drawing on the amount of knowledge he’s got, you know you’re gonna be hard to beat. In the season opener on the Gold Coast, he trounced two locals, Mick and Joel, at their home wave, on the best day it’s been in years, in successive heats, to win the event. Again there were suggestions of interference from a higher power after Kelly, holding priority, executed the most poetic of drop-ins on Parko in the dying stages of the final on what would have won the Australian the contest. But really the win had come down to superior planning. The night before Kelly had spent the hours before dark watching Kirra do its thing, mapping out the shape of the sandbank and trying to find the most consistent outcomes in this seemingly random playing field. When he paddled out the following day, he sat there confident that his moment would come. If it didn’t, then we could make claims of freak misfortune.
Kelly’s consistent ability to pull off showstoppers is also explained by the fact that winning heats is no longer the main motivation for him. I learned this firsthand back in 2011 after I watched him cruise to the most pedestrian of victories at the Quiksilver Pro, Gold Coast over Taj Burrow. It was event win number 46, and it had all seemed so damn forgone so I asked him: What buzz can you possibly be getting from pulling on a contest jersey anymore?
“If I’m in a contest, I wanna win,” he’d bristled in reply, as if to say ‘duh.’ But I wasn’t content. It didn’t explain why and when I rephrased the question he gave me this: “I’m trying to get to a place where I’m focused, but I’m not stressed out by [competing]. I don’t really enjoy the stress of the contest… I like to try to get to a place where I can compete relaxed,” he said. Then added: “It’s about performance; performing well all the time. If you can do that, you compete well. [My goal] is to make the idea of competing secondary. I’m not that fired up to go beat people but I like to win heats if I’m out there.”
With 11 world titles and 56 World Tour victories to his name, it’s not so much beating people that gives Kelly his buzz, but outdoing himself. When he manages to do that, boy is it a sight. Just ask Sebastian Zietz. The Hawaiian rookie may as well have stayed in the Tavarua restaurant for their quarterfinal together. After opening with a ten on his first wave, Kelly secured his second – and only the fourth perfect heat in history – with a wave under Seabass’ priority. Seabass meanwhile could barely manage a wave, and their heat finished as one of the most lopsided in ASP history; yet another accolade for the 41 year old.
How exactly an athlete at his age continues to progress is another sticking point for the God argument. Physically, Kelly is past his best. But when it comes to understanding surfing; the countless variables at play, his equipment, how it relates to his ability, and how all that fits into whatever wave he happens to be surfing at the time – he’s at a level experienced by no other surfer in history.
