Kelly Slater Barely Makes it to Billabong Pro Teahupoo and Advances to Round Three

by: Cyrus

Day one of the Billabong Pro Teahupo’o may not have had the pumping double to triple overhead waves that hit last year’s contest, yet when a swell comes to Teahupo’o waves of near perfection are almost always on hand.  Among those to win their first round heats and advance directly to round three were defending 11-Time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater, who barely made it to the contest before easily advancing past the opening round.

 

“I actually caught the last plane I could have caught to make my heat and I barely made it this morning,” said Slater. “It’s not often that the waves in California are better than Tahiti, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of surf here and we’ve had pretty good waves at home. It doesn’t look like there’s a to forecast for this year which is a shame, but there’s still fun surf to be had. It’s Teahupo’o and you can sometimes take for granted how beautiful the waves are here.”

 

Slater has been surfing at Teahupo’o for nearly 20 years, and the experience makes him one of the heavy favorites to win the event, a contest he has previously won on three separate occasions.

 

“I’ve been coming here since ’93 so it’s about 20 years and I still love it,” said Slater. “It’s still so raw. There’s no real big business here. It’s all families and we stay with them and it’s still a very special place.”

 

Young gun John John Florence also dominated to advance with relative ease past the second round.

 

“It’s actually cleaned up a lot from this morning,” said Florence. “This morning was really bad. The sun’s come out now though and there are a few, little barrels. It’s still really fun. We’re here in Tahiti and I’m loving it. I was trying to find a cleaner, open waves and do whatever I could with them,” said Florence. “I had one where I did a bunch of turns and ended up on the reef and had another where I got a little barrel. It’s actually scary at this size and in these conditions on your backhand because the barrels really chandelier and you can end up on the reef really quick. Pumped to get through though.”

 

The Billabong Pro Teahupo’o will resume with a continuation of round two, which barely got underway on the opening day before the contest was wrapped.   All photos courtesy of Kirstin and Robertson with the ASP.  Visit BillabongPro.com for the live webcast, results and more information.