Ed Sloane/World Surf League
No surfer has made more of big waves and big moments than Kelly Slater, and on Thursday at the Banzai Pipeline in Hawaii, the 47-year-old positioned himself for another memorable combination.
Having reached the semifinals of the Billabong Pipe Masters, an event he had won seven times in his career, Slater needed to win two more heats — the semifinals and finals — to overtake John John Florence and clinch a spot at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
But Slater’s hopes were wiped out in the semifinal of Pipe Masters, the storied event on Oahu’s North Shore that, this year, marked the end of the Olympic qualifying process for the World Surf League.