Loving him in the sense of being awestruck, wishing he would go on forever and secretly believing in your heart of hearts that despite the looming cold blade of reality perched above his career that this could be possible and you will be here to witness it.
Ending a sentence with a preposition after, what? – the best Pipe waves in five years, easily the best stanza of pro surfing since last years Pipe – then, how about this?
The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
As an epitaph for Kelly Slater, his career, life and heat today it would be perfecto.
No?
Kelly’s opening ride won’t make any highlight reels, it’ll be the Backdoor tense negotiation of four collapsing sections that gets the airtime but it is worth considering as a statement of intent.
Two stories worth of Pacific Ocean heaving onto the Backdoor side of the reef and all five-feet-nine inches and forty-seven years (forty-eight in February) worth of Kelly Slater standing erect in the tube as the wave closed out on him. Most would go, yeah but nah after that pounding but Kelly saw that closeout somehow as invitation for future dalliance and not closed chapter.
Evolution is a funny thing, as prone to blind alleys and reversals as steady progress.
Kelly himself in a recent SW interview claimed progress on the World Tour and the surfing being done at present was not as impressive as seven or eight years ago. I presume he meant the Dane era.
At Pipeline the lack of progress is even more stark.
There is no generalised evolution in performance across the Pro Tour’s CT level surfers at Pipeline. The reverse is true, if anything. A handful of masters, a few more competent and then a long tail who are clearly struggling. That is producing an artifact which Ronnie Blakey diplomatically referred to as “favourable match-ups”.
There were many today. Italo being a major beneficiary.
His heat this morning with Jaddy was again marked by solid performances and recklessness. Luckily for him Jaddy had a similar predilection for errors in judgement. It’s not enough to have the skill set in the bag of being able to throw the board under the body on a beyond vertical face, you need the judgement and positioning to be able to perfectly deploy it.
Italo squeaked through. He faces Peterson Crisanto next round. That is as close to an easy draw as he will get. A gift from God, with all due respect to Crisanto.
Blakey correctly called Owen Wright one of the biggest under-achievers at Pipe after he let Yago Dora slowly slip away from him. Pipe should be a guaranteed QF for a guy of his skill set and temperament.
Filipe looked comfortable enough in the front half of his over-lapping heat with Ricardo Christie and then spilled his marbles on the way home after Christie dodged a guillotine lip to take the lead.
The presser afterwards showed the fragility of Toledo’s charge for a world Title.
He alluded to mistakes with priority but the mental exhaustion was apparent.
”I’m just tired, whatever,” he sighed. The mental burden of career, sponsors, family and “the pressure of trying to prove yourself” to those people was clearly overwhelming for the Brazilian.
How to escape that bind for Pip? He’s now clearly got the skill set. The crushing sense of pressure is another thing entirely.
I’d be on the phone to Bede Durbidge if I was team Toledo.
He needs help.
It took until Heat six before we had the first legit contest between competent Pipe surfers.That heat marked the beginning of an epic two-hour stanza of Pro Surfing. Kemper was solid as fuck, there were subtle little pumps in the tube, crazy drops and broken boards.
You could see Kemper play a slight alpha male game with Seth, he just hustled to get the pick of the waves, but in so doing he left Moniz out the back and on the best waves that came through. It was a case of anything you can do I can do better. Moniz burrowed in tight caves hiding back in tight spaces between shockwaves and foam balls and pitching lips.
Kemper, with a favourable matchup would have won many heats today.
There isn’t really a name for that psychological condition of hating Kelly, I mean being sick to the back-teeth with what appears to be an insatiable need for the adulation of the public, and then turning around and loving him.
Loving him in the sense of being awestruck, wishing he would go on forever and secretly believing in your heart of hearts that despite the looming cold blade of reality perched above his career that this could be possible and you will be here to witness it.
He looked sleepy in his start against Duru after packing the Backdoor closeout we mentioned in the preamble. Duru started gaining ascendancy with inside nuggets and Backdoor ropers. Kelly manufactured a deep double tube but I felt very proud of the judges and fellow surf fans. We were not fooled, as we have been many times before. We knew, we could see what Kelly had done. He was awarded a mid-seven and Duru looked solid for the win.
Minutes later, everything that had come before was preamble, there were people openly losing their shit on the beach. Dancing, crying, waving their arms in the air. Kelly had just emerged from the belly of a four-chambered beast, a ride through the heaving, convulsing digestive system of a living thing.
Immediate, unanimous ten.
I went back to the stats. The fuckdest thing: Kelly of 2019 could beat the Kelly of ten years ago. When we talk about best-ever athletes that needs to be considered. At the twilight of his career, Kelly is still besting performances of a decade ago.
The camera pulled out on Kelly and we got the optical illusion of Gabe and Kelly sitting side by side.
Gabe, intense and scowling. Kelly, laughing, making prayer hands.
Medina, imperial again. There won’t be a dynasty though while Kelly and John John slip on the jerseys. With the intensity of the action, time slowed to a crawl. Medina, well in front, had the wildcard Devault comboed. He signed off on a signature deep, deep tube with a vogued straight air.
Total control.
We comprehend things in the moment but only understand them later, in retrospect. Such is the strange, backwards looking life of the world’s most successful primate. It will be hard for Devault to understand the position he had the champ in as the clock ticked down, even with the benefit of hindsight.
He had him on the ropes, after a very long, expertly ridden wave at Pipe that had a look of such sun-drenched perfection that even rec surfers may have secretly yearned to ride it.
Nine points and change, he only needed a seven to get past Medina. That five minutes of waiting, staring, wondering, praying was the most tense five minutes of pro surfing this year.
Refutation of wavepools. Not only is skill and bravery required but you may not even get the chance to display it.
When you think of pro surfing and what it can be, you think of John John at perfect Pipe. Taking the drop and pulling in.
How could that simple process become so elevated, beyond the realm of sport?
I have surfed with John at Teahupoo, I mean I scrambled around in a state of near panic dodging sets, John surfed. Time and space contract in those moments for most people, the best of the best included.
Somehow, for John, they expand. Paddling late into a ten-foot Pipe bomb, there is not one neurone that screams “He won’t make it!”.
He’s in slow motion: very simple, deliberate movements that taken as a whole attain some kind of perfection. The hands behind the back claims and tongue lolling out like a labrador showed the emotion. The relief of coming back to competition at Pipe.
He alluded to the competitive fire in the presser when he said a third Medina title would make him “pissed off.”
He has legitimate reason to believe that Title should have been his.
The wind turned onshore. Jordy choked. Big time. Gave away priority with five to go. Could not close. The arc of history does not bend towards more Pipe mastery. Which is why we, the true believers, will enjoy the fuck out of those who display it, for our entertainment, and their glory.
An epic finish awaits.
PS: Winds laid down they finished off the Round. Bourez smashed Silva and Andino held nerve to run a sword through Seabass career in glassy backlit caverns at the Pipeline. Did you watch? Analysis below please, I thought they were off for the day.
