The question of Kelly Slater’s retirement has been around for a long time. To be fair, he’s done it already, then came back and won world titles. He’s also getting up there age-wise (but don’t tell him that) and he’s not exactly forthcoming about future plans. Maybe that’s because he doesn’t know when or even if he’s going to officially retire, or maybe it’s all part of his master plan to play head games with everyone in the world. But one thing that is for certain is that this year is not the year he retires. Incredibly, it’s his 30th year on tour and he’s ripping harder than ever.
“I had like a year-and-a-half pretty much off tour with my injury, my foot,” he explains in the latest installment of the WSL’s Tour Notes. “I don’t feel like I really started getting into gear until the end, at least mentally. When it comes to competition, I didn’t really settle down and just not think and surf, you know? I was in my head a lot. Too much. The pressure of the Olympics and coming back and maybe my last year and Sunny’s incident… all those things made me struggle a little bit last year. I feel like I finally loosened up at the end of the year. I feel a lot more relaxed now. When I get into contest season, I pull back from a lot of the other stuff—any work stuff—and just to focus on surfing a lot and getting my equipment right.”
And so the question remains: is THIS Kelly Slater’s last year? Judging by his surfing, we sincerely hope not.
