And simultaneously creates new sporting record for retirement announcements, his third official communiqué in four years.
Do you remember the first time Kelly Slater retired? You will if you old.
It was 1998, a quarter of a century ago can y’believe, and the then six-time world champ had just-turned twenty-six. He’d compete sporadically over the next few years, winning Pipe in 1999 and the Eddie in 2002, before re-joining the tour to take on Andy Irons head-on, hinting at retirement every year thereafter.
In 2018, and piggybacking Joel Parkinson’s retirement announcement at J-Bay, he said he’d officially quit by the end of the following year at age forty-seven.
Last year, Slater told the wonderful MMA broadcaster Ariel Helwani, a thorn in the side of the UFC’s famously prickly Dana White, that he’d be done by 2022, and just before his fifty-first birthday.
Now as Slater heads to fifty-two, he’s told left-wing firebrand blog The Guardian, he’ll defs be done after the Paris Olympic Games in July 2024, the surfing being held at Teahupoo in French Polynesia, an old favourite of the wily master.
If he gets in, and there’s waves, there’s as better than even chance Slater will win a gold medal, the one trinket that has eluded the Champ.
“If I make the Olympics, I’ll retire at the Olympics,” Slater told the Guardian. “I’m really hoping to qualify for it, but I need to get my butt into gear. The qualification process is going to be tough, but if I can get into the Olympics, the location the event is at in Tahiti – that wave really suits my strengths. So if I can get there I think I have a really good chance of a medal, but I think the harder part is going to be getting there, to be honest.”
You’ll remember Slater was stiffed of the last slot in the US side at Tokyo by John John Florence, who competed despite being injured.