The year was 2011 and coincidentally Ke11y Slater was running down his 11th World Title… for the second time in the same contest. At 39 years old he was after the distinction of becoming the youngest and oldest World Champ in surfing history. He’d started off the year by winning the Quiksilver Pro Australia. The next few months didn’t go so well, and by July Slater figured his season was a wash. He skipped J-Bay, opting for a free surf trip to Fiji instead. After that he came to California and won the US Open in Huntington, then immediately took first at Teahupoo, and soon after, the Hurley Pro at Trestles. Slater was back in the game!
And now, in the 11th month, with The Tour taking over the city by the bay, Ke11y simply needed to make it out of the 3rd round to collect what was rightfully his. He made it to that third round, eliminating Daniel Ross by .73 points with a heat total of 15.13 (No perfect 11’s were scored in this heat) and the celebration was on. Slater had secured at least a 9th place finish at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach, eliminating second place Owen Wright, whom he’d met in 3 finals already that year. Robert Ke11y Slater was born on 2/11, and so it seemed the day 11/2 would be as good a time as any to win an 11th title, exactly one year after Andy Irons had passed. The moment didn’t pass without acknowledging his fallen friend and rival.
“I started thinking of Andy a couple days ago,” Slater said. “And today it’s like he’s watching over us. We had a little memorial for him today and now the waves, the weather, it just feels like he’s watching over us.”
Little did he know how true that was.
Five hours and twelve minutes after the title (the first time) had been won, a person we knew only as “Mark” opened our eyes when he commented on the title news through a Surfline story. It’s fantastic without a doubt. Though I’m not sure he could be crowned just yet. In the unlikely [event] Kelly finished 9th in SF, then 13th or 25th at Pipe and Owen wins both, they would both have 3 firsts, 2 seconds, 2 fifths a 9th and a 13th to count. Wouldn’t that be dead even? Not likely it will happen but what gives?
Remarkably, it wasn’t a slew of internet trolls that got the ASP’s attention after “Mark’s” advanced math. It was actually Kelly himself who brought the question to the ASP powers that be. Slater took to twitter:
Can you read this comment from Mark? The calculator at @aspworldtour must be broken. I’m not the world champ yet! pic.twitter.com/hEQXnz8K
— Kelly Slater (@kellyslater) November 4, 2011
He soon tweeted out again. “I’m not joking. I have not won the World Title yet. I still have to win another heat! Give those shirts and hats back.”
“Our rankings’ system is designed to split tie-breaks based off of seed points,” said one ASP exec. “Kelly and Owen tied at best 9 of 11 results, so we went to best 8 of 11 results and the system gave it to Kelly based off his higher seed position.” It’s been almost four years and I still don’t know what that means, but the result was Kelly needing to make it out of at least one more heat or hope Wright didn’t win both the Rip Curl Search in Northern California and the Pipe Masters in order to get that World Title back.
We all know the ending from here. Ke11y goes out and wins his 4th round heat, this time taking down Brazilian teens you may or may not know now, named Miguel Pupo and Gabriel Medina. Now it was time to party again. And the only thing better than one championship celebration is two championship celebrations. We thought he’d won his 11th world title in the year 2011 on 11/2, the first anniversary of Andy’s passing. So as for November 2nd, that day was still meant for AI and now Ke11y knew it. “Maybe it was Andy messing with me, so maybe there’s something cosmic going on.”
