The man makes 50 look pretty radical. Photo: Damien Poullenot//World Surf League
The year 2022 couldn’t have started better for Kelly Slater, and ergo, for surfing. Kelly won the Billabong Pipeline Pro, his eighth Pipe title, four days before his 50th birthday.
At the time he described it as the “best win of his life.” Given it was his 56th Championship Tour title, that was no small claim. The Brent Bielmann photo of a crying Slater being paternally cradled by fellow finalist Seth Moniz in the water just after the win was one of the sport’s defining images of 2022.
“This may be it for me, I’m going to have to talk with myself before Sunset,” Kelly said during the awards ceremony interview ahead of the next Hawaiian event at the famous beach. That hint of retirement was straight out of the Slater playbook.
The Pipeline win may have been the ideal timing for Kelly to drop the mic. After all, aside from a world title win, it was hard to imagine a better way to bow out. Yet after having a talk with himself, Kelly returned to compete at Sunset. The motive was clear: a 12th world title.
The thinking too was understandable, if ambitious. If he could score some big results at his preferred waves of J-Bay, G-land and Teahupo’o, and a few bonus points in Australia or El Salvador, there was every chance he could make the WSL Finals at Trestles.
From there, he had a one in five chance of ending his career at the wave where it all started. It was a carrot and a narrative arc that Kelly couldn’t resist. Nor could sports fans. No other 50-year-old athlete on the planet was performing at this elite level in world sport. Everyone was rooting for him.
That dream, however, quickly turned sour at Sunset. In round two, Kelly took off on the same wave as John John and bottom turned round the whitewash as Florence got to his feet. It didn’t interfere with Florence, but it was still an interference by rule. Kelly’s Sunset run was over before it began.
“I don’t like the wave. I don’t like the crowd,” Kelly said in an emotional post-heat interview. “I don’t respect Sunset and it doesn’t respect me back.” It was a low point in the year and a rare rooster today, feather-duster tomorrow scenario for the GOAT.
Over the next four events in Hawaii, Australia, Europe, Indonesia, and Africa, he won a single heat. The narrative arc had turned into a screeching nosedive. With the WSL Finals and thus a world title out of reach, he withdrew from El Salvador and Rio citing injury. J-Bay, his other spiritual home, brought no further salve.
Yet the competitive lows didn’t extend to elsewhere in his life. Whilst his peers battled sub-par conditions in Saquarema, Kelly turned up for the swell of the year at Kandui in the Mentawais. Again, it was classic Kelly; right place, right time, and proving that when the waves are perfect and serious, few surfers can ride them better. And none over 50.
He also continued his philanthropical work. Whilst in St. Andrews to play golf in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, he dropped in to help at The Wave Project Scotland, which uses surf therapy to support children who experience a range of physical and mental health issues. He also became an ambassador for the Charlie Tao Foundation, which funds game-changing brain cancer research. Recently he teamed up with artist Keegan Hall for 200 signed limited edition prints, with all profits going to Surfers Not Street Children.
On the business front, Kelly announced his new fin venture called Endorfins. The fins weigh so little they’re able to actually float. He retains 70 percent of the Firewire business whose technology is used in his signature Slater Designs boards. Outerknown, his major commercial venture, had strong growth and sponsored the CT event in Tahiti.
It was in Tahiti that Kelly returned to competitive form in 2022. Going into finals day at the event we theorized, yet again, that this could be Kelly’s last stand. If he were to win just three heats, he would have claimed a record sixth CT victory at Teahupo’o. Would that be enough to call it quits? Well, no. A semifinal loss saw that potential scenario evaporate. He would finish the year as number 15, a highly respectable result, given he missed two events.
And so now, with 2022 behind us, the question of just what Kelly will do next year remains as relevant, elusive, and addictive as ever. Slater withdrew from the Vans Pipe Masters, the new Invitational format, just days before the event kicked off, yet the WSL had confirmed his place as one of the top 22 qualifiers from the 2022 CT Rankings. A 12th world title remains in play.
The 2024 Olympics, to be held at Teahupo’o, also loom large. The 2023 CT rankings will provide ten of the 20 men’s Olympic places, with the USA receiving a maximum allocation of three surfers. In 2022, Kelly was the third-highest American CT surfer. So, yet again, the possibility to gain Olympic qualification remains a realistic target. Slater winning gold at the 2024 Olympic Games would be one of sport’s greatest fairy tale finishes and the perfect end to 35 years at the top of the sport.
It seems Kelly Slater isn’t done with this thing called surfing. And surfing isn’t done with the GOAT. Let’s keep enjoying it while it lasts.
