Ready the Kleenex.

“Where were you when Kelly Slater surfed his final ever heat” is, maybe, going to be a question asked by children and their grandchildren into eternity. The world’s greatest athlete will come up in heat 5 of the Tahiti Pro, today, against Australia’s Ryan Callinan.

The elimination round.

Commentators in the booth are calling conditions “challenging” i.e. “bad” and Strider Wasilewski let it slip that Slater had not caught a wave in the morning warm-up session.

A goose egg.

So, where are you going to be in just a few short hour’s time?

Taking time off work, heading down to the local bar and hugging patrons tightly?

Alone in your house, lights darkened, candles lit?

Other?

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If Slater loses, remember, he will be finished for the season and will only be back next year if granted a special season-long wildcard by the World Surf League itself.

Almost impossible to imagine.

Oh wait.

As you were.

UPDATE:

Kelly Slater made it past R. Cal in the Elimination Round! Will surf against Yago Dora in Heat 3 of the upcoming Round of 16.

The End of the Road.

"Minor celebrity" turned major.

Former top Hawaiian pro surfer Conan Hayes is, now, clearly the most interesting man born in our world. The onetime Momentum Generation star and co-founder of RVCA who sold his share to PM Tenore for $7.5 mil then became erased from the brand’s history, has been on a Kafaesque tear since spreading his wings and leaving the surf industry nest.

In 2015, Hayes was hit with grand theft charges by the Orange County DA, who alleged Hayes had committed short sale fraud against the Bank of America “by providing Bank of America with false information concerning his financial net worth, which was in the millions of dollars, in order to qualify for short sale relief.”

The charges were dropped two years later “among a myriad of scandals following the prosecution.”

Later, he opened a warehouse in Los Angeles that imported children’s toys.

Then, two years ago, he was introduced as a player in the Donald Trump election kerfuffle of 2020.

Per Vice:

In recent years (Hayes) has become somewhat of a minor celebrity in election fraud conspiracy theory circles, under his anonymous Twitter handle We Have Risen. He has worked on an election audit in Antrim County and has suggested on social media he was in Phoenix where the Arizona audit is currently taking place. He also has links to Doug Logan, the Cyber Ninja CEO who is currently running the sham audit in Maricopa County.

Further evidence that Hayes was the person who captured the images was provided by cyber security experts tracking this situation, who found Hayes’ initials in the downloaded files:

Clevenger confirmed to VICE News on Thursday that it was in fact Hayes who had provided the data from Mesa County to Watkins. What Clevenger, who represented the Seth-Rich conspiracy theorist Ed Buttosky, was not able to say for certain was if it was Hayes who also provided the video clip to Watkins, who Gerard Wood was, or if, as some open sources investigators tracking this situation believe, that Hayes and Wood are in fact the same person.

Well, that “minor celebrity” title has expanded over the years which includes costume changes, being on Trump’s legal payroll, using a fake ID to copy election software and other such star turns.

Now, it appears, he has arrived in the upper echelons of Trumpian fame. The influential political writer Seth Abramson, Harvard grad, former attorney, has dug through open source media and guessed the thirty formerly unnamed unindicted co-conspirators in the federal case against Trump and his election tampering.

Conan Hayes is either number 21 or 22.

The big time.

But where did it all turn for the man who once had it all?

Quite possibly Teahupoo, where our current crop of championship tour surfers find themselves at this very moment.

Per the Encyclopedia of Surfing (subscribe here):

Hawaii’s Conan Hayes got a pair of 10s in the (1988) final, and a 7 (it was best-three waves back then), but one of his 10s was so much better than anything ridden in the event that the number was meaningless. Koby Abberton meanwhile got two 9s and a 9.1, and won the event. People who were there still recall Hayes’ loss as the single most wrongful call in ASP history, made worse by the fact that Abberton (below), having necked a half-dozen Hinanos between the final horn and the presentation, galloped onstage, took the check, and bellowed out to the still-stunned gallery “Whoooooose the man?” Silence. ‘Whooooose the man?” Still no reply, so Koby helped out. “Me! I’m the man!”

Professional surf judges planting the seed of conspiracy.

On the plus side, and according to Vanity Fair, there is worry in Trump’s camp that one of the unindicted co-conspirators could flip. Per the piece:

The possibility that one of Trump’s former advisers could turn state’s witness and testify against either him or his aides or close associates is already apparent to the twice-impeached former president. This summer, Trump has asked some of his political and legal advisers to name who—especially among those investigated or questioned by the special counsel’s office—they believe to be the most “vulnerable” and likely to crack under pressure from prosecutors, according to two people who’ve heard him ask about this.

What do you think the Justice Department would offer Hayes for some damning testimony?

Quiksilver?

A major come up.

More as the story develops.