Posts Tagged ‘Kelly Slater’

The Champion’s Champion: Kelly Slater Turns 10!

Posted in Surfing, tagged 10, 10 world titles, ASP, ASP World Tour, Champion, Dane Reynolds, Kelly Slater, Quicksilver, Surfing on November 8, 2010| 6 Comments »

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.

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Why You Should Root For Kelly Slater (UCB)

Posted in Surfing, User Choice BLog, tagged ASP World Tour, Chris Lisanti, Kelly Slater, Surfing on October 14, 2010| 4 Comments »

Well I have to commend everyone for stepping up the ante in the UCB race this quarter. I have gotten so many submissions it made picking a winner this week rather challenging. I don’t want to sound like a whinny bitch but if we could try and use surfingruinedmylife.com comments to post future submissions I would be greatly appreciative. You see word press, my server allows me to compile all comments onto one page making it very easy to sort through all of your entries.

It’s a bit more time consuming when I have to check through days of face book comments, emails, myspace, etc. I will still take submissions through those mediums but I definitely prefer it if you post here. Its really easy all you have to do is set up a user name and password. It only takes like a minute of you time and then you can leave lude comments on my blog whenever you like.

This weeks victory goes to Nick the Kook who suggested I write about Slater’s 10^th title run. At the time of his posting I was not even considering this topic, but just recently Kelly won the Portugal event of the world tour bringing him within spitting distance of title number 10. His clinching it is almost eminent.

Slater gets a bad rep sometimes in surfing with people claiming they are tired of him winning or that he gets over scored or is a sell out. I have heard everything. Fuck man the guy rips, flat out rips. He has dominated the sport now for over 20 years. The guy is a living legend.

Not to mention he is one of the coolest people to surf with in the water. At the most crowded days at both Rincon and Malibu he never drops in on anyone despite the fact that people will burn him out of spite. Even when such an instance occurs Kelly is still smiling. He is a true testament to the human spirit and that anything really is possible.

Here was a poor kid from a broken home growing up in south Florida surfing the crappiest waves ever. From that he managed to break every record in professional surfing. He misses round one of events cause he is off scoring waves someplace else. He brought surfing into the limelight through his dominance. Everyone knows who Kelly Slater is even people who know very little about surfing at all.

He was once voted one of Time Magazine’s most beautiful people, was on network television, toured in a terrible rock band, dated super models. How can you hate on a guy like that. Kelly is living a dream and if you have a dream too then there is no reason to be angry at a person living his. At 38 years old he has shown us all that its possible to high performance surf well into our later years. Thanks to Slater you don’t have to stop doing airs at thirty.

New School, Old School, Mod col, whatever, Slater has dominated them all. I think we will be hard pressed to see anyone for a long time rip down the dynasty Kelly Slater has built. When he takes the world title for the tenth time no one will be happier for him then me. Every time Im doing something hard and want to give up I always think about Slater and how hard it must have been for him to remain dominant all these years and I put my head down and keep at it. Thank you Slater for giving me something to believe in.