Kelly Slater

One that's been spoken about a lot was myself and Andy Irons, who unfortunately passed away in 2010.

But Andy and I, for about six or eight years, had a really pretty intense rivalry.

And...

And that really pushed me at that time.

This is like early 2000s, maybe 2002.

I came back on tour.

I took a few years off and came back.

And he was world champ for like three years running.

Starting the first year, I got back on tour.

So it took a big effort by me to get myself into a different gear and catch up with what was going on.

Whether that's your surfing itself, your strength and your preparation or just your mental state.

You know, all those things kind of come together to create this recipe of ingredients for yourself.

But, you know, prior to that, when I was first starting out, when I won my first world title at 20, it was my first full year on tour.

Yeah.

I had already been a rookie because I'd competed a little bit in the two years prior to that, but not a full year.

Wow, you went straight to a world title.

I went from 43rd in the world to first.

In the end of 91, they were creating this new transition tour where it wasn't just an open series.

You could just enter any contest.

You had to be in the top 44 in the world to be able to be in any of the events.