11x World Champ Kelly Slater On Surfing’s New Olympic Rules: “It’s Silly”

Last week, the ISA dropped its new Olympic qualification pathway for the 2028 LA Olympics, as ratified by the IOC.

The world’s best surfers were not happy about it.

Recent world champs Yago Dora, Caity Simmers, and Filipe Toledo expressed their disdain for the new system and the way in which it was established by the ISA, which they described as disrespectful and nonsensical. Even the WSL’s CEO, Ryan Crosby, came to his surfers’ defense, publicly requesting the ISA and IOC to reconsider.

The ISA’s offense? Halving the number of surfers that qualify directly from the CT, and pulling those CT qualifiers from just four events, as opposed to a full season.

The real kicker, though, was that the ISA had allegedly not taken any of the CT surfers’ calls when these decisions were being made, essentially neglecting the thoughts and opinions of the world’s best surfers in an alleged act of self interest. (If you want to hear everyone’s sides and a deeper inspection of the rule changes, read here.)

Since the fallout, many in the surfosphere have shared their opinions across message boards, social media pages and local lineups. While there are staunch proponents for both sides, a Stab IG poll showed 74% of surfers were against the ISA’s new qualification system, deeming it ‘unfair’.

One of the few opinions we hadn’t yet heard was that of surfing’s greatest-ever competitor — a man who holds seven more world titles than his next closest (like-gendered) competitor. Robert Kelly Slater.

Kelly also happened to the be the guest on this week’s episode of Stab Mic, hosted by Dane Reynolds and Damien Fahrenfort. The boys lobbed the ISA question across Kelly’s plate, and he teed off.

Here’s Kelly’s take:

It’s stupid to not use the world tour as qualification. It’s so simple. The best surfers in the world are on tour. You will have these outliers — one or two guys or girls that are the best in the world that aren’t on tour — but let’s face it, the best surfers in the world are on tour. That’s where they all are.

And I really like Fernando [Aguerre] and I appreciate what he’s done for surfing. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t think surfing would be in the Olympics right now. But I think it’s crazy to revert it to the ISA games where you have a different format, you have four-man heats, you have these teams you have to be on a certain way to get in, et cetera. It creates a bigger potential for an international field in the Olympics, but a 100% chance the field won’t be as good. And to me, that’s crazy.

Obviously whoever qualifies off the tour, it’s going to make them easier to win a medal, which is great for them — but it’s also going to potentially have this thing where maybe people will start to boycott. Because they’re like, this is just silly. We’re spending our whole lives and our whole year to get on this tour to qualify and be with the best in the world, but now we have to go do this completely other qualification to get in the Olympics. Who’s running the show here?

Pretty cut and dry from Kels.

According to multiple sources, the WSL has been in talks this week with the ISA, IOC, and WPS (surfer’s union), discussing the new changes and whether or not they’re the best option for the 2028 Games.

Whether or not changes will come remains to be seen, but surely Slater’s opinion has to count for something. Right?