Latest news with #KellySlater
CNA
02-05-2025
- Sport
- CNA
Surfing-Pipeline back as world surf tour finale in 2026
SYDNEY :Hawaii's Pipeline Masters will return as a high-stakes finale for surfing's world tour in 2026, part of a shake-up unveiled on Saturday that includes the resumption of a Formula One-style cumulative rankings format to determine world champions. Considered the world's most dangerous and challenging wave, Pipeline has for decades taken centre-stage at surfing's spiritual homeland of Hawaii, with season-ending contests there crowning champions including Kelly Slater, Gabriel Medina and John John Florence. In recent years, Pipeline has been the first stop on the championship tour, with a one-day, winner-takes-all contest of the top five surfers held instead in softer waves in Southern California. (The 2025 Finals are being held in Fiji.) "Pipeline has always held a special place in surfing history, and our fans have made it clear they want to see our sport's most critical moments unfold there," said Ryan Crosby, the chief executive of professional governing body, the World Surf League. The tour's controversial mid-season cut of one-third of competitors is also being tweaked. All 36 men and 24 women will contest the first nine "regular season" events and return for the 12th and final event at Pipeline. Stops include Bells Beach in Australia, Jeffreys Bay in South Africa and the 2024 Olympics venue of Teahupo'o in Tahiti. Abu Dhabi's wave pool and Peniche in Portugal will host the two smaller "post season" events before Pipeline. Results at Pipeline will be worth 1.5 times standard championship tour events to reflect its elevated status, with world titles determined by a surfer's best nine results from the April-December tour. "I've never felt anything like the moment I won at Pipeline," said 2019 world champion Italo Ferreira. "Winning the Olympic gold medal and competing in the WSL Finals were amazing, but nothing in surfing compares to winning the world title at Pipe. I'm so excited for the chance to compete for that feeling again." Crosby, giving his first interviews since joining the WSL as CEO a year ago, said the primary focus had been around making Pipeline the finale, which prompted other changes including a return to cumulative points through the season. "One is the final five format. We didn't feel good about only having 10 surfers be able to surf Pipe. That felt like a really bad outcome for the sport and a bad outcome for the surfers. And then secondarily, from a permitting standpoint ... we couldn't run a final five format in a Hawaiian event." Heading into its 50th year in 2026, professional surfing has experimented with a number of different formats and venues but struggled to broaden its appeal to a wider, non-surfing audience, something Crosby said the WSL was shifting focus on. "Our goal, and it's been a bit of a mindset shift, is to really focus on doing what's right for surfing and doing what's right for surfers," Crosby, a keen surfer for more than 20 years, told Reuters. "The belief is focusing on that really engaged audience is the organic growth mechanism to a broader audience." 2026 WSL Championship Tour locations - Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia - Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia - Snapper Rocks, Queensland, Australia - Punta Roca, El Salvador - Saquarema, Brazil - Jeffreys Bay, South Africa - Teahupo'o, Tahiti - Cloudbreak, Fiji - Lower Trestles, California, USA* - Surf Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - Peniche, Portugal - Pipe Masters, Hawaii, USA** * End of regular season, start of post-season
Reuters
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Reuters
Pipeline back as world surf tour finale in 2026
SYDNEY, May 3 (Reuters) - Hawaii's Pipeline Masters will return as a high-stakes finale for surfing's world tour in 2026, part of a shake-up unveiled on Saturday that includes the resumption of a Formula One-style cumulative rankings format to determine world champions. Considered the world's most dangerous and challenging wave, Pipeline has for decades taken centre-stage at surfing's spiritual homeland of Hawaii, with season-ending contests there crowning champions including Kelly Slater, Gabriel Medina and John John Florence. In recent years, Pipeline has been the first stop on the championship tour, with a one-day, winner-takes-all contest of the top five surfers held instead in softer waves in Southern California. (The 2025 Finals are being held in Fiji.) "Pipeline has always held a special place in surfing history, and our fans have made it clear they want to see our sport's most critical moments unfold there," said Ryan Crosby, the chief executive of professional governing body, the World Surf League. The tour's controversial mid-season cut of one-third of competitors is also being tweaked. All 36 men and 24 women will contest the first nine "regular season" events and return for the 12th and final event at Pipeline. Stops include Bells Beach in Australia, Jeffreys Bay in South Africa and the 2024 Olympics venue of Teahupo'o in Tahiti. Abu Dhabi's wave pool and Peniche in Portugal will host the two smaller "post season" events before Pipeline. Results at Pipeline will be worth 1.5 times standard championship tour events to reflect its elevated status, with world titles determined by a surfer's best nine results from the April-December tour. "I've never felt anything like the moment I won at Pipeline," said 2019 world champion Italo Ferreira. "Winning the Olympic gold medal and competing in the WSL Finals were amazing, but nothing in surfing compares to winning the world title at Pipe. I'm so excited for the chance to compete for that feeling again." Crosby, giving his first interviews since joining the WSL as CEO a year ago, said the primary focus had been around making Pipeline the finale, which prompted other changes including a return to cumulative points through the season. "One is the final five format. We didn't feel good about only having 10 surfers be able to surf Pipe. That felt like a really bad outcome for the sport and a bad outcome for the surfers. And then secondarily, from a permitting standpoint ... we couldn't run a final five format in a Hawaiian event." Heading into its 50th year in 2026, professional surfing has experimented with a number of different formats and venues but struggled to broaden its appeal to a wider, non-surfing audience, something Crosby said the WSL was shifting focus on. "Our goal, and it's been a bit of a mindset shift, is to really focus on doing what's right for surfing and doing what's right for surfers," Crosby, a keen surfer for more than 20 years, told Reuters. "The belief is focusing on that really engaged audience is the organic growth mechanism to a broader audience." 2026 WSL Championship Tour locations - Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia - Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia - Snapper Rocks, Queensland, Australia - Punta Roca, El Salvador - Saquarema, Brazil - Jeffreys Bay, South Africa - Teahupo'o, Tahiti - Cloudbreak, Fiji - Lower Trestles, California, USA* - Surf Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - Peniche, Portugal - Pipe Masters, Hawaii, USA** * End of regular season, start of post-season
Mint
02-05-2025
- Sport
- Mint
Surfing-Pipeline back as world surf tour finale in 2026
SYDNEY, May 3 (Reuters) - Hawaii's Pipeline Masters will return as a high-stakes finale for surfing's world tour in 2026, part of a shake-up unveiled on Saturday that includes the resumption of a Formula One-style cumulative rankings format to determine world champions. Considered the world's most dangerous and challenging wave, Pipeline has for decades taken centre-stage at surfing's spiritual homeland of Hawaii, with season-ending contests there crowning champions including Kelly Slater, Gabriel Medina and John John Florence. In recent years, Pipeline has been the first stop on the championship tour, with a one-day, winner-takes-all contest of the top five surfers held instead in softer waves in Southern California. (The 2025 Finals are being held in Fiji.) "Pipeline has always held a special place in surfing history, and our fans have made it clear they want to see our sport's most critical moments unfold there," said Ryan Crosby, the chief executive of professional governing body, the World Surf League. The tour's controversial mid-season cut of one-third of competitors is also being tweaked. All 36 men and 24 women will contest the first nine "regular season" events and return for the 12th and final event at Pipeline. Stops include Bells Beach in Australia, Jeffreys Bay in South Africa and the 2024 Olympics venue of Teahupo'o in Tahiti. Abu Dhabi's wave pool and Peniche in Portugal will host the two smaller "post season" events before Pipeline. Results at Pipeline will be worth 1.5 times standard championship tour events to reflect its elevated status, with world titles determined by a surfer's best nine results from the April-December tour. "I've never felt anything like the moment I won at Pipeline," said 2019 world champion Italo Ferreira. "Winning the Olympic gold medal and competing in the WSL Finals were amazing, but nothing in surfing compares to winning the world title at Pipe. I'm so excited for the chance to compete for that feeling again." Crosby, giving his first interviews since joining the WSL as CEO a year ago, said the primary focus had been around making Pipeline the finale, which prompted other changes including a return to cumulative points through the season. "One is the final five format. We didn't feel good about only having 10 surfers be able to surf Pipe. That felt like a really bad outcome for the sport and a bad outcome for the surfers. And then secondarily, from a permitting standpoint ... we couldn't run a final five format in a Hawaiian event." Heading into its 50th year in 2026, professional surfing has experimented with a number of different formats and venues but struggled to broaden its appeal to a wider, non-surfing audience, something Crosby said the WSL was shifting focus on. "Our goal, and it's been a bit of a mindset shift, is to really focus on doing what's right for surfing and doing what's right for surfers," Crosby, a keen surfer for more than 20 years, told Reuters. "The belief is focusing on that really engaged audience is the organic growth mechanism to a broader audience." 2026 WSL Championship Tour locations - Bells Beach, Victoria, Australia - Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia - Snapper Rocks, Queensland, Australia - Punta Roca, El Salvador - Jeffreys Bay, South Africa - Lower Trestles, California, USA* - Surf Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - Pipe Masters, Hawaii, USA** * End of regular season, start of post-season ** Full championship tour fields rejoin post-season surfers to compete at Pipe Masters (Reporting by Lincoln Feast in Sydney; Editing by Sonali Paul) First Published: 3 May 2025, 01:31 AM IST
Daily Maverick
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Maverick
Legend Kelly Slater —still closely connected to SA – crests new waves as activist and businessperson
Slater was recognised with a Laureus Lifetime Achievement Award, but his busy life these days has a decidedly environmental focus. Professional surfing might be a niche sport compared with soccer, tennis or cricket, but the name Kelly Slater transcends barriers. Slater is the most decorated pro surfer of all time, with 11 world titles and 56 event wins accumulated over four decades of competitive surfing. His name has become synonymous with longevity and excellence in the athletic arena. A global sporting force, he is a powerful advocate for environmental causes and living a clean and healthy lifestyle. Slater (53) was recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2025 Laureus World Sports Awards, which were held in Madrid, Spain, on 21 April. Another recipient of a special honour – the Global Icon Award – was tennis great Rafael Nadal. Among his athletic peers at least, Slater is viewed with the same respect as Nadal. 'I've lived a clean lifestyle, a drug‑free lifestyle, and I've always been a proponent of being healthy and clean to young kids,' Slater said of his longevity and appeal. 'Aside from … winning the 11 world titles, I'm proud that I believed I could do it and stuck to my guns.' Local connections Slater, who hails from Florida in the US, has strong connections to South Africa through his sport. He came to Durban in the 1990s to compete in the now-defunct Gunston 500 and has been a regular visitor to Jeffreys Bay as a competitor in the World Surf League. The right-hand point break at J-Bay, as it is fondly known, is one of the legendary stops on the league's cosmopolitan calendar, and Slater has excelled here with four wins. The surfer still competes sporadically through sponsors' invites, and one of those invites is to the Eastern Cape this July for the Corona Cero Open J-Bay, the 10th stop of the 2025 Championship Tour. 'I'll probably take a few more [sponsor invites],' Slater told Daily Maverick in Madrid. 'I'm going to surf Trestles [in California] in June. Outerknown [his clothing brand] is sponsoring it and Dylan [Slater, no relation], our CEO, asked me to surf it, so I will. I heard a rumour I might get offered J-Bay, but we'll see. I sort of got informally offered it a couple of months ago, but I don't think I'll take it. 'That month is my son's first birthday, so I'll probably just want to be doing whatever we think he'll want to be doing. 'But we do want to bring him to South Africa. We want to teach him how to collect all the shells that we like so we don't have to do it any more. South African beaches have great shells. 'I'm 100% retired from full-time competition. But if I get offered wild cards at spots I like, it's fun for me. It's not serious. I'm not chasing points or money these days.' Slater is also closely connected to South Africa through charitable work and a simple love for the country and its surf. 'I surfed the Gunston probably six or eight times. I don't remember the last year I surfed it. I surfed it all through the '90s until, I'd say, at least 2000. Durban's changed a lot, unfortunately,' Slater said. 'The last time I was there, I felt sad because I felt like there was this community and this area that I grew really fond of from '92 on and made lots of good friends. 'Some of my best friends I ever had were from South Africa, particularly in Durban. I just really looked forward to going there every year. Now it just doesn't have the surf culture that it had. 'It feels like it's got no energy when you're down there. Everyone's kind of moved off to Ballito. You don't hear much about Cave Rock any more and the Bluff… There're still great waves over there, but there's just some lack of… I don't know what it is. 'I work with the charity Surfers Not Street Children. Tom Hewitt, an English guy who runs it, is doing some great stuff there. He's taken these kids literally off the street, whose parents might be drug dealers or prostitutes or in jail, and they really don't have a future ahead of them, and he's dedicated his life to them. 'He's helping kids get out of poverty, to get an education while teaching them to surf and figuring out how to find a way to get a job. So, there are some positives, but overall, surf-wise, it's really gone down the tubes in that area.' Environmental concerns Slater could easily shuffle off into the shadows and live a contented lifestyle, but he is an activist and a businessperson. He has numerous businesses, from designing and installing wave pools to producing sunscreen lotions made from sustainable ingredients. He is also active in the fight against plastic in the oceans, which is his greatest environmental concern. 'Plastic pollution is a fucking nightmare,' Slater said animatedly. 'It's at the deepest points of the ocean now. They're finding garbage on the sea floor. 'And microplastics are a problem too. It's really going to affect our food sources and stuff more and more and more. By 2040 or 2050, there's going to be more massive waste in the ocean than there will be sea life. 'Generally, I think there's a lot of fearmongering in the media around environmental things, climate change and so on. With plastic pollution, I don't have any doubt it's probably worse than we talk about. And it's so tied into our everyday lives with all the waste that we all create. 'Fortunately, the younger generations have been exposed to the planet's environmental issues early on and they have inventive ideas to solve problems. If you pair creativity and technology with emerging generations, I think they will most likely come up with some really cool solutions in the near future. 'But we're going to have to figure out how to take this plastic out of the ocean and maybe start to alleviate how we use plastics. It's a byproduct of the oil industry, and that's not going away anytime soon. 'People need to start incorporating environmental awareness. I started Outerknown 11 years ago. Social compliance was a big thing for me. It was sort of the biggest thing in environmental sustainability. So we handpick the factories we work at. We make sure there's no slave labour. We make sure that everyone has a working living wage. 'Workers are not held against their will and they get paid well. Unfortunately for the customer, our prices reflect that. When they're expecting a $20–$40 pair of board shorts, it might be $80 to $100. But textiles cost more. The workforce costs more. 'We're putting something positive in and we hope those products last longer. So, you can buy one or two instead of five. We found our customer and our groove.' DM
Forbes
01-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Outerknown's New Retail Strategy & Focus On Sustainable Innovation
Outerknown's newest product was tested by co-founder Kelly Slater in locations around the world. In the world of sustainable fashion, Outerknown's goals for 2025 include innovation on both the product and retail sides of its business. On the product side, the brand, co-founded by 11-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater and creative director John Moore, most recently unveiled an updated version of its sustainable Apex Evolution board short. Outnerknown's new Apex board shorts are made from recycled fishing nets. This product, three years in the making, was produced in partnership with Bureo, which utilized its NetPlus® material made from 100% recycled fishing nets. Through the NetPlus recycling program, discarded nets are sourced directly from fishing communities before they end up in the ocean. The entire process, from collection through recycling, is third-party audited and certified for material traceability. However, the product isn't solely about sustainability; it was performance-tested, too. Slater tested the product by surfing in them in places like Tahiti, Fiji, and Hawaii—some of the most challenging conditions for swimwear. 'We delivered on all of Kelly's precise design requests: better no-slip braided drawcords, an enhanced waistband that cinches without bunching, and reinforced ultrasonic-welded seams where it matters most,' said Moore, Outerknown's Creative Director. 'This yielded a truly responsibly-made trunk with a little more substance than the first Apex—without compromising any performance qualities.' Beyond product innovation, Outerknown is also recalibrating its retail strategy. 'We've spent the last 10 years building a strong digital business and establishing our own vertical retail stores, but we realized there are still many communities where the brand is absent,' said Outerknow's new CEO Dylan Slater. 'Our goal is to allow the Outerknown story to be told by partnering with retailers who share our vision.' This shift includes re-engaging the brand's wholesale channel, which has been largely dormant for the past year while the team mapped out the sequential steps to grow the business alongside its direct-to-consumer foundation. Initially, Outerknown focused on independent specialty surf shops and other surf-inspired retailers, aligning with Kelly Slater's audience and the brand's core identity. Looking forward, Outerknown will work to extend beyond the surf community and explore broader retail opportunities. The realignment comes as Outerknown integrates under a larger business umbrella that also includes Firewire and Slater Designs. 'Each brand has different strengths and opportunities,' said the CEO. 'Firewire is a globally distributed, wholesale-driven hard goods brand, while Outerknown is apparel-focused with mostly U.S.-based direct-to-consumer sales. The common threads are Kelly Slater and our shared commitment to sustainability and responsible innovation.' The Apex Evolution board short exemplifies this commitment, showcasing how the brand works to create products responsibly without sacrificing performance, quality, or style. Along with this, the company continues to expand its use of regenerative organic certified (ROC) cotton, which currently represents about 15% of its products. For other brands considering a shift toward sustainable materials, Slater acknowledges the challenges but emphasizes the opportunity. 'Yes, it's a premium investment, but customers are willing to pay for value and integrity,' he says. 'The key is storytelling—educating consumers on what goes into each piece and why it matters.' To reinforce this message, Outerknown leverages content marketing, social media, and in-store experiences to connect with consumers, as well as video content to dive deeper into the stories behind its branded products. While some DTC brands eventually scale into big-box retail, Slater shared that's not in Outerknown's immediate plans, but instead, they plan to focus on growing organically to ensure their retail partners and customers truly understand and appreciate the story. As Outerknown approaches its 10-year anniversary, the brand is making strides in sustainable fashion. With Apex Evolution leading the charge, a refined retail strategy in place, and a continued commitment to responsible product innovation, the company is working toward a future where performance and sustainability coexist seamlessly.
