Breaking: Kelly Slater Is Back!

Great news from the WSL. 

After missing the first five events of the 2018 Championship Tour season due to a latent foot injury, Kelly Slater will make his triumphant return to competition at Jeffrey’s Bay – the very wave that injured his foot in the first place. 

Critics have slammed Slater for continuing to surf on his injured foot throughout 2018 – including at the inaugural Founders’ Cup event, which was held at his own wavepool, and at Cloudbreak’s “Black Mamba” swell, which occurred at the same time as the WSL’s Corona Bali Protected event at Keramas – to which Slater has responded: “Lots of questions about competition and the event in Bali…Long story short, I am not on the level I want and need to be to compete.”

More recently, Slater revealed he had suffered a secondary foot injury that he referred to as “Turf Toe”, which he expected would cause him to miss the J-Bay event. 

Slater’s inclusion into the J-Bay event insinuates that his toe must have healed faster than anticipated, which is great news for everybody but Italo Ferreira and Kanoa Igarashi, who will face Slater in Round 1 at the South African point. 

John Florence and Caio Ibelli have officially pulled out of the J-Bay event, leaving room for Wiggolly Dantas and Miguel Pupo to enter as wildcards, alongside Mikey Wright, who sits at number seven in the world based solely on wildcard slots.

If Mikey qualifies for the 2019 CT through his efforts as a 2018 wildcard (AKA maintains a position within the top-22 through the Pipe Masters this December), he’ll be the first never-CT-surfer to achieve this feat since the implementation of the wildcard qualification rule. (Update: Our astute commenters have revealed that Stu Kennedy achieved this very feat no more than two seasons ago. We apologize for our due negligence.) 

J-Bay starts on July 2nd. See you there, bru!