Fifty-four-year-old Kelly Slater will compete at Teahupo’o. Photo: Ed Sloane//WSL
Kelly Slater’s drawn-out retirement tour continues. The World Surf League announced it will give the 11-time world champ another shot at the Championship Tour with a wildcard into next month’s Tahiti Pro.
The move is anything but surprising as the WSL has made a habit of giving Slater wildcards into events sponsored by Outerknown, the brand he co-founded. Last year, Slater got a wildcard into the Trestles CT stop, which Outerknown supported as a presenting sponsor.
Sponsorship aside, Slater has more than earned the right to compete at Tahiti. He’s made the finals at Teahupo’o seven times and won the event five times. But it’s been a decade since he last won there.
“I’ve been recovering from hip surgery late last year and recently got back to surfing daily,” Slater said in the WSL press release. “I’m really looking forward to getting myself locked in before August comes around and hoping for great conditions in Tahiti to give us all a good challenge. No pressure for me coming into this one, but I also haven’t competed in quite a long time, so it’ll be fun to see how I go getting in the mix with everyone. If I can relax and just focus on what I know out there, I should have a good time.”
Slater missed the now-defunct mid-season cut in 2023, but the WSL gave him a wildcard to finish out the season. He received another season wildcard on the 2024 tour, but failed to make the cut again. The WSL granted him wildcards for Tahiti and Fiji. Then, in 2025, the WSL gave him event wildcards for Trestles and Pipeline.
At 54 years old, Slater’s competitive performance has declined sharply. He’s pulled off a few strong results in waves of consequence, like his fifth place last year at Pipeline, but he’s mostly been getting eliminated early. In 2024, out of the six events he competed in, he finished 17th five times. His one strong performance was, unsurprisingly, a fifth place in Tahiti.
You could argue that giving Slater wildcards is pointless and taking opportunity away from younger surfers. He’s only won two events since 2014 (Tahiti in 2016 and Pipeline in 2022). But he’s proven that he can still hang with the best in heavy tubes, so the Tahiti entry makes more sense than his quick elimination last year at Trestles, for example.
As for retired surfers who want another shot at a CT event, the formula is out in the open. While Slater may have earned a bit of leverage with 11 world titles, it appears that if you can pony up some cash for an event sponsorship, the wildcard might be yours. Kolohe Andino, Dane Reynolds, Julian Wilson, Jamie O’Brien, take notes. Even if you finish last, you still get a $10,000 participation check.
