In case you missed it, former Championship Tour surfer Jack Freestone launched Washed Podcast over the summer. And what better way to get traction than to come out with this hot take: Kelly Slater shouldn’t have surfed in the Tahiti Pro.
Kelly Slater may have only surfed three heats, but his stint in Tahiti was memorable, dare I say, historic. The 54-year-old notched a nine-point tube in his round one heat, then defeated Gabriel Medina in round two with a near-perfect 19.06 total. The 11-time world champ was so stoked with his barrels that he was cracking jokes nonstop in his post-heat interview — not the typical stoic version of Slater.
As co-founder of the Tahiti Pro’s title sponsor, Outerknown, Slater was gifted a wildcard into the event (and because he performs exceptionally well in barreling waves, which is unquestionable). He gladly leveraged the wildcard. While Freestone understands the benefit of having Slater appear in an event, he thought the spot should have gone to someone else.
“Don’t mean any offense to Kelly, but I’m just thinking if I was in his position, what would I do? I would be using that spot — especially if I had a brand like Kelly did — and I’d be sponsoring athletes and try and push them in a better direction,” Freestone said. “Obviously, giving them a spot in the Tahiti WSL event would be huge for their careers. So that’s just my perspective.”
“I don’t even know if they sponsor that many up-and-coming athletes, but it’d be cool for them to sponsor an athlete and put them in the event,” he added.
As surf fans are still coming down from the high of Slater’s Teahupo’o greatness, it is indeed a bold opinion. But it did the trick of stirring up a conversation. It almost received more comments than the rest of the podcast’s Instagram posts combined. Maybe Freestone has a future in this podcasting world.
