It’s easy to say that Kelly Slater should have retired a while ago. “Make room for the new generation,” people say. “Go out on top.” A litany of reasons, all of which fall on deaf ears. Hell, people have been saying it since the WSL was the ASP.
Every year, the retirement question arises. And every year, Kelly makes it abundantly clear that he’ll retire when he wants to retire. Given the fact that he won Pipe last year, can still hold his own against the new generation, and draws a hell of a crowd, perhaps he is still good for surfing. Must he continue to dominate to stay on tour? I don’t know, and he doesn’t care.
With the Billabong Pro Pipeline right around the bend, it’s worth looking back at last year’s event and how Kelly Slater won. It was part of a very exciting beginning of a year that fell off a cliff immediately afterwards. For Kelly, Sunset ended with a 17th place finish. Portugal a 9th. Bells, Margaret River, and G-Land all handed him early eliminations and 17th place finishes. After his Pipe win — which he called the “best win of his life” — and the ensuing predictions of a 12th world title, that precipitous drop must have felt particularly bad.
But still, Kelly Slater won the 2022 Billabong Pipe Masters at the ripe old age of (just about) 50. Way back in 1992, he won his first Championship Tour event at Pipeline. Over the 30 years between his first and most recent Pipeline win, he stood atop the Pipeline podium eight —count ’em — eight times.
It had certainly been a while between wins. The last time he won Pipeline before 2022 was in 2013, and his last CT win was way back in 2016. While he’s still in the title conversation, Kelly Slater’s odds of winning a 12th are slim. That’s not to say I wouldn’t love to see it, or that it’s completely out of reach, but they’re slim. I’d wager even he knows that.
And so, as we patiently wait for Pipeline to sound the starting horn on January 29, here’s a look back at how he started his 2022 season off with a bang that made the surfing world sit up in a way that only Kelly Slater can make them sit up.
