Like many fans of the WCT tour we cringed yesterday as Kelly Slater fell off wave after wave in the opening minutes of his round 2 heat against Spain’s Aritz Aranburu. It wasn’t until the last two seconds of the heat that we saw the Slater we know and love spring back to life with an inverted snap that reminded everyone that they were watching the world’s greatest surfer on a bad day. But the wave just didn’t have enough on it for Kelly to advance.
Leave it to The Sydney Morning Herald to put Kelly’s third first-heat defeat into proper perspective:
Kelly Slater bombed out of the Billabong Pro in Tahiti yesterday to continue the biggest fall from grace by a king since Henry VIII took a liking to Anne Boleyn. Slater, the greatest of all the surfers, needs a miracle to retain his world title after losing to little-known Spaniard Aritz Aranburu at Teahupoo.
It was a humble and contemplative Slater who answered GT’s questions following the heat–sometimes with the painful honesty of a warrior who has lost something important but just doesn’t know what it is.
“That may have just given me an excuse for a big, long vacation,” he said. “I don’t know yet. It’s really decision time for me. With that many 17ths, you’re really hard pressed to win a world title. I’m not here to just make up the numbers, but I don’t want to fall off the map, either. I guess I kind of have, though. Numbers-wise, I’m still within the possibility of getting in late in the year, but I don’t know. I guess I have a lot on my mind.”
We’re hoping he continues in the hunt, but then again it’s tough to watch a hero repeatedly limping off the field of play.
[Link: Sydney Morning Herald]
