Following catastrophic second round, Kelly Slater mounts comeback of the year to win invitation-only event at exclusive Four Seasons Hotel in Maldives, “You can’t put fight into a man’s guts if he hasn’t any fight in him!”

"The physical beating was not as painful as the humiliation."

Briefly, the over-fifties surf community, that dreadful little group of libidinal bile-filled males, was in shock a couple of days back following the defeat of their icon Kelly Slater in the second round of the invitation-only Four Seasons Maldives Surfing Champions Trophy.

The contest, which runs over three days, has a single fin, twin fin and three-fin division. Twenty-five gees to the winner.

Slater had made short work of the Momentum Gen, including one-time arch-rival Rob Machado, in the single fin div before stumbling to a shock third-place finish in the two-screw heats.

Yesterday afternoon, however, Slater cauterised that wound by winning the thruster div before showing the grit and granite he’s famous for and beating Shane Dorian in the grand final.

 “The Final was really fun,” said Slater. “Shane has been the really in-sync guy with the waves throughout this event, but in the Final I kind of took that from him. I think he caught one of the best waves of the heat (8.7) but the wave came too late, and there were only a few minutes left when he got back out to the lineup. We’re even now though, it worked out perfectly.”

Thruster Division Results:

Kelly Slater (USA) – 1st
Rob Machado (USA) – 2nd
Shane Dorian (USA) – 3rd
Hussain “Iboo” Areef (MDV) – 3rd
Ross Williams (USA) – 5th
Taylor Knox (USA) – 5th