Kelly Slater at his caustic best!

Only two days after being mauled for his vax scepticism in an opinion piece in Australia’s The Sydney Morning Herald, Kelly Slater has opened multiple fronts, dragging in a who’s who of surfing, after responding to Ace Buchan’s comment on a post by Tracks magazine. 

Tracks jumped on the Herald piece, hard not to when a story is seared to a crunch and served with bread for sopping, and ran a pointer to it on their IG account.

Ace, who is thirty-nine, and a veteran of sixteen WSL seasons (best finish sixth in 2008), ran with what he figured was the voice of reason.  

Complex issue and everyone is entitled to their views and choices (whilst acknowledging that their choices in this case have a huge impact on those around then) …but is it not slightly alarming that professional athletes and more specifically surfers are completely over indexing in conspiracy theorists, anti vaxxers and spreading of misinformation? A group that also happens to over index in under education, over confidence and use of social media to digest and spread media? I wouldn’t listen to a bunch of doctors telling me which board to surf before a heat at Pipe, I’d chat to a bunch of my surfer friends ….but I wouldn’t listen to those same surfers tell me what to do and which medicine to take if I hurt myself in that heat, I’d go chase the doctors.

And the switchboards lit up. 

First, Slater, who turns fifty in a few months, and who’d previously told of friends dying from the vaccine, either from side-effects of suicide, wrote, 

@acebuchan I’ve yet to see a surfer giving advice on which medicines to take but feel free to show me. I’m personally against vaccine mandates for people in a free society with what the experts characterise as a leaky vaccine. So I think you’ve missed the point. When virologists and doctors acknowledge that you can catch and pass on covid because you carry a similar viral load when vaccinated, we’ve all got every right to be confused and should adamantly be asking questions. I’m not sure where you or anyone else missed the logic there. And I very well could be wrong but am happy to take that ‘risk’ whatever people assume that to be. Insinuating anyone is playing doctor here is a disappointing moment, a false equivalence, and nothing more than an appeal to authority. Your comment is just an opportunity to virtue signal.

Ian “Kanga” Cairns, rough, tough, big-wave hero, squirter of testosterone and lover of big chicken-fried steaks stood behind Kelly, as did two-thirds or so of the five hundred-ish comments. 

“In an era where Australia is being subjected to incredible levels of suppression of free speech and medical choice,” wrote Kanga, “@kellyslater should be applauded for taking a public stand for use of alternative treatments and opinions that have always been our prerogatives as Australians.” 

Much emotion and distorted angles and enough, I think, to lend the dullness of daily life an invigorating jolt. 

Scroll through here. 

"I can't stand repeating any more of his staggering hubris."

Five days ago, the Australian Press rounded on Kelly Slater for being sceptical of COVID-19 vaccines after the champ lit up on a little-known website popular with ocean athletes. 

Slater, who turns fifty in a few months, told of friends dying from the vaccine, either from side-effects of suicide. Even his mum Judy Moriarity “thought she was dying and fears her quality of life has changed in the past few days for good,” wrote Slater. 

Now, Peter FitzSimons, a star columnist for broadsheet The Sydney Morning Herald, has mauled Slater in a brutal opinion piece, published yesterday. 

A few of the choicest cuts, 

Ummm, Kelly. Do you get this is not just about you, but about the community you are a part of? That getting the vaccine is not just about keeping yourself safer, but also limiting the likelihood of you passing it on to those less healthy than you.

You don’t get that? OK, if you must, do go on.

“If something happens to me it’s on me, not someone else.”

(See above. You risk passing it on! Seriously, how hard is this?)

The next bit from Slater is all about how 99.7 per cent of all people who get COVID are fine, so what is the big deal, particularly when “this is clearly a disease of obese, unhealthy, and elderly”.

This is too obvious a nonsense to spend any time on it. The healthy people who go down to COVID are too myriad to dwell on. And as to 99.7 per cent being fine, that is just – what that’s word again? – bullshit. In fact, globally, a little over two per cent of those who contract COVID die from it – so you’re about 700 per cent out. But it is not just those who die that count. What about those, having survived, who are still suffering from it, including fatigue, foggy brain, and difficulty in breathing!

Anyway, let’s get back to Kelly Slater so he can unload this pearl.

“And for people saying listen to the doctors, I’m positive I know more about being healthy than 99% of doctors, but I wouldn’t trust me. But most of my COVID info comes directly from doctor friends, many of them in disagreement with the official ‘science’.”

Hello, United Nations? World Health Organisation? The medical establishment around the world?

Yeah, look. Call off the jam. Despite the 735,000 now dead in America from COVID and the millions around the world, turns out it’s no big deal at all! Yes, you heard me! Kelly Slater the surfer knows more than 99 per cent of all of you, and he not only won the world surfing championship 11 times – so he should know a lot about medicine, I think? – but is supported by some doctor friends! So I guess it’s all a hoax after all!

I know. Go figure.

Enough. I am not sure I can stand repeating any more of his staggering hubris.

Read the remaining crumbs, here. 

"LFG. Let’s foxing go. This would be a dream come true. Oh my gosh."

Oh but The Ultimate Surfer is a gift that certainly keeps on giving. Most recently, winner on the men’s side Hawaiian Zeke Lau has officially qualified for the 2022 World Surf League Championship Tour with a fair finish at the just-wrapped Quiksilver Pro, France.

Many bravos but you will certainly recall that the present for becoming The Ultimate Surfer was three wildcards into the aforementioned tour.

The selfsame Lau no longer needs.

Though what to do with them?

The Ultimate Surfer runner-up, or Penultimate Surfer, Koa Smith has decided, by right, that they belong to him and is going on a scorched earth campaign in order to take and hold.

In an attempt to shame Santa Monica’s WSL into submission, the blonde Hawaiian took to Instagram and declared, “Ok Zeke requalified for the Championship Tour. That means his Ultimate Surfer wildcards are just floating in the air, up for grabs. Should I get them as runner-up to The Ultimate Surfer? If you think so, repost this story and @ the WSL. LFG. Let’s foxing go. This would be a dream come true. Oh my gosh. Let’s storm WSL.”

A potent mix of common sense, shame and heartfelt-ness.

Burning the potential competition to the ground.

Smith has 261,000 followers on Instagram, a fine amount, and no doubt they are doing their very best to help him reach his dream but I think Alejandro Moreda should be gifted one. He only has 14,000 followers but is a wonderful boy.

Listen here.