“It seems like the end”: Surf legend Kelly Slater hints at his upcoming retirement. “It seems like the end”: Eliminated from a competition on the World Surf League tour in Australia, 52-year-old American surf legend Kelly Slater once again alluded to his upcoming retirement on Tuesday, without explicitly announcing that he is hanging up his board.
“Everything has an end,” Slater declared after his elimination against world No. 1, his compatriot Griffin Colapinto, in Margaret River, south of Perth (Western Australia).
Eleven-time world champion, both the youngest – at 20 years old in 1992 – and the oldest – at 39 years old in 2011 – holder of 55 competition wins, a record, Kelly Slater, poorly ranked on the elite circuit, will not participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
On several occasions, he has referred to his upcoming retirement, but without officially announcing it. “It seems like the end (…) If you don’t adapt, you can’t survive. I wasn’t motivated to be at 100% like everyone else is now.”
“It’s been an incredible life, rich in memories,” Slater continued. “This represents so many emotions, for so long. It wasn’t all rosy, but they were the best moments of my life,” Kelly Slater said, cheered by the crowd present and carried on shoulders as he exited the water despite his elimination.
On the verge of fatherhood for the second time, he also referred to the microphone of the World Surf League organization “to the beginning of something else, the beginning of the rest” of his life.
His unmatched track record gives him the status of “the greatest surfer of all time,” the equivalent of Michael Jordan in basketball or Muhammad Ali in boxing.
