Kelly Slater misses nothing – except the Olympics?

Kelly Slater hears all, sees all. But the last great dream of his legendary career – winning gold at the Paris Olympics – is in jepoardy.

Kelly Slater of the United States is hoping to seize his ‘one chance’ at Olympic Games glory in 2024, with the fight for surfing gold to take place in Tahiti. Picture: Getty Images.

Kelly Slater hears every word. Reads every yarn. He was a fan of The Daily Telegraph headline that followed his win at last year’s Pipe Masters: “Hawaii Five-O!” While celebrating one of professional surfing’s more extraordinary triumphs, he was perusing the digital edition of a Sydney newspaper. He misses nothing.

Great headline and yet it wasn’t entirely accurate. The GOAT won Pipe in the week of his 50th birthday. In truth, he was still six days shy of kissing his roaring forties goodbye. Fast-forward a year and he was back on the hardcore island paradise of Oahu, having raised his bat for a proper half-century, preparing to nudge a quick single to 51 on February 11 while chasing the final dream of his legendary career - making the American team for next year’s Paris Olympics.

Hawaii, Oh-No. Slater lost in the round of 32 to Brazil’s Yago Dora. Any ocean, every ocean, all oceans are glorious. Yet they don’t seem to have a permanently sentimental bone in their bodies. Pipe smiled on Slater last year but on Wednesday she treated him with disdain. Mocked him. Threw him around like a rag doll and then spat him onto the shore. None of which was a complete shock to the 11-time world champion who know the sea so intimately.

“Got hammered by about 15 waves,” he grinned. “Sometimes you think, it’s just not my time, right? Last year was my time. Today wasn’t.”

The Olympics are creeping up on us. Didn’t Tokyo just finish? The top two surfers from each nation will likely earn Olympic berths. Slater’s a decent prospect. US male boardriders are middle of the road at the moment. “This will be my one chance,” he said. “The next Olympics after Paris, I’ll be 55 years old. I’m not going to be on tour by then. I did say that at 40, though, when I was talking about being 50.”

The carrot for Slater is that surfing at the Paris Games will be held far, far away from the City of Lights It’ll be staged at Teahupo’o in Tahiti, where he’s won five times on the World Surf League tour. “I still love to surf and this is the outlet for it,” he said. “I feel that candle kind of burning out for me, which has been happening for a while, but I think I’m just going to surf until it’s totally done and I don’t really care any more about surfing a heat and want to be somewhere else.”

If Slater makes the American team, given the extreme location, which scares most surfers witless, Slater will be one of the top handful of gold medal favourites. It’ll be harder for him to make the Games than get a medal. “Teahupo’o is one of the truly great challenging waves in the world,” he said. “If I can get on that team, I feel like I have a good shot at potentially winning a medal or gold medal. If that were the case, I will drop the mic and quit right then. But you know, I’ve got a lot of work to do between now and then.”

Even more work than before. Hawaii, oh dear. The WSL’s next event, at Sunset Beach, starts February 12. He’d better fire up there or the Olympics will be one of the few things missed by the man who misses nothing. Places on Australia’s Olympic team are likely to be hard-fought if the season-opening Pipe contest is any guide. Jack Robinson, Ryan Callinan, Callum Robson and Liam O’Brien all reached the last 16. Ethan Ewing is guaranteed to be in the thick of it.

Robinson had a massive heat against Brazil’s three-times world champion Gabriel Medina late on Wednesday. He won it by 11.5 points to 10.4. Theirs is the best and most heated rivalry in surfing.

They don’t appear to have much time for each other. Robinson was waiting in the lineup, smirking at Medina, who refused to look at him. They paddled over the top of each other, making contact with boards and bodies, as close as toe-to-toe as you can be while sitting on planks of fiberglass. It was intense. “I’m just surfing,” Robinson said. “Just competing. Loving it. It’s Pipeline and there’s so many variables. Gabe and I have many more heats to come. For sure.”