Surfing great Kelly Slater has said he will retire from competition after the Paris Olympics next year.
Widely considered the greatest surfer of all time, the 51-year-old has enjoyed a career of unprecedented success and duration. Slater won his first world title in 1992, aged 20, and another 10 world titles in subsequent decades. Most recently, he took out last year’s Pipeline Masters in Hawaii and is currently ranked 16th in the world.
In an interview with Guardian Australia to promote season two of Make or Break, an Apple TV+ series about the World Surf League, Slater said that his remaining ambition is to qualify for the Paris Olympics. He missed out on qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Games, where surfing made its Olympic debut, by one spot.
“If I make the Olympics, I’ll retire at the Olympics,” he said.
Slater has previously hinted about his plans for retirement, including in 2018 when he announced his intention to retire after the 2019 season.
The surfing competition at the Paris Olympics will be held in Tahiti, at the famed Teahupo’o break. Slater has won the World Surf League stop in Tahiti on five occasions, as part of his record-breaking 56 career championship tour victories. If he qualifies to represent the United States next year, he will be among the favourites at the heavy barrelling wave.
“I’m really hoping to qualify for it, but I need to get my butt into gear,” he said. “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.”
The addition of surfing to the Olympic roster has provided a new spark of inspiration, the veteran surfer said.
“As a kid my goal was to win contests on tour and potentially be a world champion one day – that was really the peak of my idea about what my future might hold in surfing,” Slater said. “With surfing coming into the Olympics at the last summer Olympics in Japan for the first time, it’s offered up this other potential goal to reach towards.”
American Carissa Moore and Brazil’s Ítalo Ferreira won the inaugural surfing gold medals in Tokyo. Australia’s Owen Wright placed third to win the bronze medal in the men’s competition.
