In all of competitive surfing’s history, there are a few heats that stand out. John John Florence vs. Kelly Slater in 2014. That famous high-five at Pipeline. Owen Wright’s pair of perfect heats in Fiji. And the one you see above: Kelly Slater battling it out with Gabriel Medina.
It was at the Fiji Pro in 2016. Cloudbreak was all time. Slater and Medina were in near-perfect form; both surfers thrive in conditions like the ones on offer that year. It was a toss-up — opinions on which surfer was better were varied — so when they came up against each other, surf fans were, to use an overused word, frothing.
As the event went on, it was as though the ocean understood that two of the greatest barrel-riders in the world were there to play. The waves got bigger and better as the event neared the end, and the semifinal might’ve been the best heat of the whole event. Medina went on to win both the heat and the contest, but the semifinal is what people still remember all these years later.
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