Any day the Eddie gets a green light is a special day. Since the first Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational held in the first week of January 1985, the contest has only run 10 times. That’s once every four winters for those of you jumping on the quick math. And nobody has ever won the sport’s most revered event more than once, giving it all even more prestige. Even with all that in mind, this year’s Eddie felt even more special. The waves may have been the best we’ve ever seen during the contest’s 40-year history.
“It was just different,” said Billy Kemper, putting it bluntly.
The final result this year was, of course, different. An off-duty North Shore lifeguard, Luke Shepardson, gave surfing the most made-for-Hollywood story you could imagine by winning it all. But this came after a familiar face and name had dominated most of the day. Kai Lenny, an athlete who just seems destined to become an Eddie winner some day, sat at the top of the leaderboard through the first half of the day and was within arm’s reach of the most significant accomplishment of his career.
“I think the anticipation of an event like this — there’s so much weight to it that you don’t necessarily stumble at the finish line but you almost get in your own way,” Kai Lenny says.
Three weeks later, Lenny was just a few miles up the coast competing at Sunset Beach facing an entirely different competitive field on the CT roster. He bowed out in the elimination round of that event and as he reflects on the two tough losses on the North Shore, we get to see just how much one of surfing’s greatest athletes constantly wrestles with things like self-doubt – like the rest of us mortals.
“I just have to remind him that he’s human,” says Molly Lenny, Kai’s wife. “You’re not gonna be perfect at everything you do. It just takes time. He sets these goals for himself and wants to accomplish them, and that pushes him to be as talented as he is.”
