How many fingers am I holding up?

By now I think everyone in the surfing world unless you live under a rock knows that Kelly Slater has achieved the unimaginable; winning an unprecedented 10^th world title and claiming his 45^th world championship tour victory.  The man has broken just about every competitive record there is in surfing and raised the bar so high we may never see such a surfing champion again.  It will take some pretty phenomenal surfing talent to undo the Kelly Slater dynasty.

More then all the stats and records Slater was as stoked as anyone to win.  You think after nine ten would be just another notch on the belt, but you could see just from the look on his face the amount of emotion going through him as he was chaired up the beach in Puerto Rico.  Then when most people would be ready to celebrate he went out and won the whole dam event.  All bull shit aside, judging, favoritism or whatever Slater truly claimed this years world title on pure ability.

The guy surfed flawless and not just Kelly Slater flawless but at the par of the so called “modcol” generation.  The guy pulled off one of the craziest ally oops I have ever seen, falling completely off his board and some how recovering at Bells Beach, event two.  He stuck another ridiculous full rotation ally oop at the Portugal event.  Kelly has been throwing down on the gnarly aerial maneuvers the entire season on top of his usual blend of flow and power.  Im not even going to get started on that backside reo he pulled at Trestles another event he won that from the first heat he set the bar so much higher then anyone else out there.

The only other surfer who was really worth watching for comparative ability this year was Dane Reynolds.  Not in contest statistics per say but in just the aspect of pure go for broke performance.  Dane has consistently surfed the best wave or maneuver in just about every event on tour this year.  Some of the stuff he sticks is outlandish for a free surf or video segment let alone a contest.

The problem with Dane is his ability to put a heat together in terms of points, but you know what I don’t think anyone cares how Dane finishes just as long as he does well enough to stay on tour.  Personally I would be really sad if decided to fit his surfing into a mold just so he could win a few more heats.  Its about time we got someone out there who just goes for it no matter the consequence.  Dane my hat is off to you as well.

As for you Kelly, great job now lets bring the magic through to Hawaii and take the Triple Crown and Pipe Masters as well making it a banner year.  I know I have been saying for the entire year that I hope he takes his tenth and then retires, but after watching his performance on tour this year I really hope Kelly sticks around.  I would really like to see how many more victories the guy has in him.  Could Kelly Slater be a forty year old world champ?

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/tracing-kelly-slaters-career-defining-2010_49310/ This is a great video up on Surfline.com on Slater’s amazing title journey this year.  Watch it and see some of the crazy waves I was talking about.