Kelly Slater to miss European World Tour leg?

Even when he’s not winning heats, Kelly Slater still generates great interest. Two days ago at the Hurley Pro, Lowers he faced Mick Fanning in round five, and pulled some witchdoctor shit on a backside air recovery (watch above). It’s been the subject of much debate since. And amid the furious haze of “was it worth more than the four points the judges gave it?”, something that Kelly mentioned in his post-heat interview has been rather overlooked: He may skip the next two World Tour events.

Losing to Mick puts Kelly out of the title race – a fact he would’ve been aware of immediately following his round four loss, no doubt. “To be honest I’m really going to think about if I’m going to go to Europe now,” said Kelly. “Because that (loss) puts me out of a title shot.”

So the chance of a 2015 title win is gone. And while few other 40-somethings in the world are as physical tuned as Kelly, he has been dealing with an increasing packet of small injuries in recent years. Plus, Kelly knows better than anyone that you start a world title campaign the year before. “I’m just carrying too many injuries, I need some time off. It would be a nice couple of months and if I didn’t go to Europe and just surfed Pipe. That would give me almost five months to get myself back in working order for next year.”

Really though, none of this means a thing, because as we all know, Kelly does what Kelly wants, and if the forecast for France looks fabulous, we’ll no doubt see him on the Landes sand come October 16.