"I think there is a good case to be made that you should take the top 10 in the world wherever they are from and then figure out the teams.”
For all of Kelly Slater’s many foibles and personality quirks, often dissected then put on display here, one phenomenal thing about him is his candidness. The 11x World Champion, arguably greatest surfer ever, is not prone to sugar coating or wall of positive noising.
When asked, he will answer and answer what he really thinks.
San Jose’s Mercury News sat down Slater, during the just wrapped Surf Ranch Pro and mined some gems.
On making it to the Olympics via John John Florence or Kolohe Andino injury:
“I don’t want to make it that way. But if that is what it is I’ll take my spot.”
On the current state of Florence’s knee:
“(I saw him paddle boarding and he wasn’t kicking with his knee) so it makes me think he is in pain or really, really protecting it just to be careful. It’s going to be up to him to decide but he is going to be really susceptible to injury again.”
On the Olympic selection process:
“I literally missed making the Olympics by one wave, by one heat. If I had won one more heat from the whole year I would have made the team.” (And in reaction to Filipe Toledo not being on the Brazil Olympic team) “They couldn’t make a little more room for clearly the best guys. I think there is a good case to be made that you should take the top 10 in the world wherever they are from and then figure out the teams.”
On the quality of surf in Japan:
“That time of the year it literally could go lake-flat for a week. That could be much more harmful to our sport than helpful. If guys can’t speed up and do aerials and do the good standard of surfing that we have it’s just going to be a non-event really.”
On which country he would compete for, ideally:
“I’m from Florida but I don’t necessarily feel like an American. I feel like I came from the Earth.”
Team Earth for the win.
Enjoy the rest of the piece with cameo from World Surf League CEO Erik Logan here.