THE International Dateline has played its part in an awesome April fools day prank by surfing legend Kelly Slater, who’s announced his ‘retirement’ from professional surfing via his Instagram account.
Slater, who’s in Australia for the Bells Beach event on the world tour, sent the surfing world into a spin with the announcement (see below) and judging by the comments on the post, plenty of folks were sucked in by the prank.
He aimed it at friends and fans back home in the US, where Aprils fool day is today local time.
Slater posted:
Big decisions in life don’t come easy and it’s taken a lot of quiet time and personal introspection to come to this conclusion...The #RipCurlPro was the first event I surfed on tour and it’s fitting that this will be my last @wsl. There are too many people to thank and memories to go over but here’s to hoping I can pull a rabbit out of the hat and win one last event this week. My board feels great (thank you @cisurfboards and @travlee) and I’m as psyched as ever to just surf and enjoy. Hope to see everyone down there at #BellsBeach this week. Not the best forecast but I’m channeling my #FloridaRoots! @dbahnphotos #HappyApril1stEveryoneBackHome #ThisIsSoConfusing
