The feel-good story of the decade.
The recent interview conducted with the world’s greatest athlete, Kelly Slater, by Breitling continues to captive the surf reading public with revelation after revelation emerging from the, ostensibly, advertorial masterpiece. Drip after drop after drip holding sway while J-Bay ticks to commencement.
Slater sat down with the luxury Swiss watch manufacturer, recently, to speak about the re-worked Superocean Automatic 42 Kelly Slater. Limited to 1000 pieces, Breitling used its dive watch as foundation but swapped in a bright orange dial as nod to the 11x world surfing champion’s father and an army green band, inspiration un-noted, though the chat quickly pivoted to shocking revelations that he, Slater, surfs for a grueling 50-minutes at a time as opposed to the typical 30 and once heard, evidence-free, that surfers have eclipsed golfers in number, noting there is much money in golf.
Lost, however, or at least under-acknowledged, is Slater’s intent to surf in the upcoming 2024 Olympiad which will be held in France and, thus, subjugated French Polynesia i.e. Teahupoo.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was on my mind. Because the location of the next Olympics is a spot I’ve probably had my first or second best results in my career — it’s in Teahupo’o in Tahiti. France is hosting the Olympics and they’ve chosen to take it down to Teahupo’o — I’ve won that contest like six or seven times. It would be really great to try to make that team. They only took two people from each country in the last Olympics, and they’re going to take three from a couple this time — including the U.S. I honestly think the qualification is potentially harder for me than winning the Olympics. If I can get in there I think I’d have a shot at winning the Olympics in 2024. And I’d be 52, so I’d be one of the oldest Olympians in that game.
Slater is correct in his assessment that qualification may be more difficult than winning gold. At time of writing, the most recent Pipeline Pro is sitting as the sixth best American in the world with only the top two, per country, allowed. If you recall, Hawaii does not get to surf under its own flag, per Olympic rules, so John John Florence and Baron Mamiya are directly in his way but let’s get into the numbers?
John John is hurt and may have a tough time getting his wobbly boot motivated. Baron should, or could, be a lock. Kolohe Andino, the American with a Hawaiian name, is above Slater too plus has Olympic experience and Nat Young, the American with an Australian name, is making moves. Griffin Colapinto, currently world no. 4, has shown flashes of brilliance, likely also locking, so where does that leave our man?
Does he have what it takes to rise above a solid but compromised field?
While the World Surf League insists they “don’t script this,” should they just once?
The feel-good story of the decade.
Or to quote the great Noa Deane, “America, fuck yeah.”
But quickly, Slater claims to have won at Teahupoo “six or seven times.” Do you not think he knows whether it is “six” or “seven” or is he just that good?
Possibly even the greatest of all-time.
