Slater (pictured) packing his bags and staying home. Photo: WSL
Slater (pictured) packing his bags and staying home. Photo: WSL

Rumor: Surf king Kelly Slater rips hearts from fans’ exposed breasts, set to skip Gold Coast Pro after being gifted season-long wildcard!

Chas Smith

By Chas Smith

Very sad.

Today was to be the day that surf fans, the world over, would see surfing’s greatest draw, 11x champion, Pipe Master and Pro Pipeline, Kelly Slater surf for the first time since a mock execution less than two weeks ago. You certainly remember how the 51-year-old, there in Margaret River and facing the World Surf League’s dreaded mid-season cut, faltered and was lain beside Kolohe Andino, Nat Young, Jackson Baker et. al. under the guillotine’s wicked blade.

His career, spanning decades, over in the blink of an eye unless he could somehow, in some way, muster the gumption to crawl back to the Qualifying Series, gain enough points and victoriously return to the bottom rung of the Championship Tour.

Well, in a wild, last minute reprieve, the World Surf League, which had already changed its rules under cover of darkness allowing for professional surfers named “Kelly Slater” to earn points in surf competitions where others cannot, swooped in and rescued the ageless-but-clearly-aging wonder, gifting to him a season-long wildcard that would allow him to stay on tour for basically ever.

Slater, though, was still slated to join his beheaded former stablemates in Coolangatta for the Gold Coast Pro Challenger Series event that opened its window yesterday, set to surf in round 64, heat 12 running later today. He has a home there, familiarity with the wave and surf fans, the world over, thrilled to see if he could regain some form, maybe even make a fairytale Olympic push.

Those hearts are now flopping on the sidewalk like gross little fishies out of water.

The last squirts of blood wheezing through vena cavas.

For, allegedly, the greatest athlete ever has decided not to participate in the event. A well-placed source declares he is currently in Hawaii, and will not get on a westbound jet plane, because “he doesn’t have to.”

“He’ll just re-qualify through the tour now that he has all the wildcards.”

What do you think about that?

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Original power couple Kelly Slater and Luke Egan, inset, and Egan's sprawling Burraneer Peninsula estate, main photo.

Basso-voiced former world number two surfer Luke Egan buys mid-century beach shack on sprawling quarter-acre estate after selling beachside bunker for almost six million dollars!

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

Egan and fam to relocate to Sydney's exclusive Burraneer penninsula after swinging 3.5 mill at almost waterfront compound… 

Back in December, the “powerful, basso-voiced” former world number two Luke Egan, described as the “the best all-around surfer in the world after Kelly Slater” offloaded his redundant beachside bunker in Cronulla for almost six million dollars despite a housing market that was teetering on its glitzy high-heels. 

Egan, who is fifty-four and his Fox Sports presenter wife Jess Yates, had commissioned the build of that five-bed cubist joint four hundred metres from the sand at Wanda after buying the dirt for a little under one-and-a-half mill in 2014.

Now, the pair have spent $3.5 million on a mid-century shack on a sprawling quarter-acre hunk of wildly fertile dirt wrapped in a downy luminous green grass. The Morris House, as its called, was offered for the first time in sixty-four years.

“Create a luxury family estate or land bank for the future,” said its selling realtor.

Even in its slightly run-down form, it’s a house with a gorgeous skeleton that requires little more than a quick blow and go, as they say, to make it spectacularly liveable for Egan and his little family.

Egan retired from the world tour prematurely, it was felt, in 2005 to become a marketing manager for Billabong, leaving eight years later.

Although rarely putting a foot wrong, his real estate chips are the stuff of legend, Egan’s one misstep was his foray into “adventure wear” with the brand Depactus, “a technical outfitter for surfing’s modern youth”.

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Tommy Gun in hozzy.

British surfer Tom Lowe almost killed in catastrophic Tahitian wipeout reveals how close he came to death, “I’ve never nearly died like that, not to that level. This was as real as it’s ever been!”

Derek Rielly

By Derek Rielly

"It’s incredible what the mind and spirit can do when you know you’re fucked."

One week back, as big-wave daddies shucked responsibilities to chase and wrangle a wild Teahupoo swell, British surfer Tom Lowe very nearly never saw his soon-to-be-born kid after he was pitched on the takeoff, busting six ribs and puncturing a lung in the collision with the notorious reef.

How bad was it?

Jamie Mitchell, an Australian big-wave surfer who ain’t scared of a few catastrophic wipeouts himself, see here, and here, here, and yeah here, asked the twenty-nine-year-old Brit what it’s like to feel the fist of God on your head.

 

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A post shared by Jamie Mitchell (@jamie_mitcho)

“I went and sat on the shoulder to wait for my wave,” says Tom. “One of the bigger waves of the day popped up, the channel went all blue. By no means do I have much experience out there, but I turned and went late. I jumped [from the lip], but I wouldn’t even say it was an awkward jump. I’ve jumped like that a million times. When I hit the water, I put my hands over my head, and was ready to get sucked over. I was on autopilot. I’ve done that a million times in a million waves.

“But as soon as I went up and over, I knew I was gonna hit [the reef]. It hit so hard on my side, that I knew it was gonna be bad. When I came up, I couldn’t breathe. I had this big cut going on. My shoulder, elbow, ribs…I was all broke up. I couldn’t shout or wave. My shoulder was broken, too. All I could do was use my other arm to keep my head above water.

“In my mind, I was like ‘I will make it; I will make it to the beach. I need medical help.’ It was the most pain I’ve ever felt. It’s incredible what the mind and spirit can do when you know you’re fucked.

“This was the heaviest situation I’ve ever been in by far. I’ve never nearly died like that, not to that level. This was as real as it’s ever been.”

Shortly after Lowe’s hospitalisation it was revealed his travel insurance policy didn’t cover his medical costs and Tahitian authorities subsequently wouldn’t let him leave French Polynesia until all his bills, totalling fifty gees, were paid.

Lowe, who earns one thousand dollars a month at Vans and hence broke as hell after slinging ten gees at chasing this swell, was stuck until friends and fans, although not his multi-billion dollar sponsor Vans, raised the required cash to get him out.

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Open Thread: Comment Live, Day One of the Gold Coast Pro where hope and hopelessness are the ingredients of a nouveau béchamel!

Chas Smith

By Chas Smith

Death becomes her.

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Slater (left) in The Lineup. Photo: Instagram
Slater (left) in The Lineup. Photo: Instagram

Surf royalty Kelly Slater avoids Snapper and its grotesque local enforcers ahead of Gold Coast Pro, warms up on “world’s deepest standing wave” in Hawaii!

Chas Smith

By Chas Smith

Money moves.

The Gold Coast Pro, there stage right of Snapper Rocks, will officially kick off today, by all accounts, and professional surfers are ready. As you know, Coolangatta’s most famous wave once commenced the entire Association of Surfing Professionals then World Surf League Championship Tour season. There was a gilded ball in nearby Surfers Paradise, first, then many fine performances in the water before the production moved south to Bells.

Alas, those were different time. Since, a smarmy Oklahoman has decided that Snapper ain’t good enough and relegated it to the scrub Challenger Series. It’s value, now, based upon the fact that it is the first stop after the new “mid-season cull” and allows beheaded professional surfers their first possibility of redemption.

Points toward requalification.

Nat Young, Zeke Lau, Jackson Baker, Michele Rodrigues et. al. will be surfing in the round of 64 after their decapitations. 11x world champion Kelly Slater will be surfing there too even though it is unnecessary for him so to do. The aforementioned smarmy Oklahoman, World Surf League Chief of Executives Erik Logan, changed the rules overnight allowing the 51-year-old to earn points from wildcard entries into Championship Tour events and then gave him wildcard entries into ALL Championship Tour events.

Sneaky.

But there he is anyhow, in the round of 64, heat 12.

Now, most of the hopefuls have been in town for days, warming their legs and spirits on Snapper’s lengthy rights though a terror has reared its head.

Enforcing locals.

First brought to light by the “bastion of kook” Surfer magazine, this new grotesque breed appears to horrify and bully by donning springsuits, dropping in and surfing so poorly that the idea of skill, of style, is sucked from the very souls of all nearby.

We will see how this affects Young, Lau, Baker, Rodrigues et. al. but Kelly Slater took absolutely no chance. He chose, instead, to warm up at The Lineup at Wai Kai.

Just west of Honolulu, The Lineup is said to be “the world’s deepest standing wave” and sources on the ground declare that Slater very much enjoyed the experience, even tiring himself out on an extremely long ride.

He was, anyhow, on a flight to Australia yesterday and will likely be ready to “earn” his way back to the bigs.

Get excited.

But, quickly, does Slater’s excursion to, and approval of, The Lineup make you want to sample? It sure does me.

See you there.

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