The Surfrider Foundation announced this week that World Champion surfers Kelly Slater and Stephanie Gilmore have signed on to be this year’s International Surfing Day Ambassadors. Observed globally on June 20th International Surfing Day celebrates the sport of surfing and helps raise awareness about issues facing our oceans, waves and beaches.

Dominating the Telstra Drug Aware Pro at Margaret River wasn't enough for Kelly Slater today, he also surfed a nearby shallow wave known as “The Box”. Photo Credit: ASP/Robertson

FIJI
MEXICO

Quiksilver’s Xplosive Wetsuit, the company’s most innovative wetsuit with unparalleled technical design, will be tested this week on Hawaii’s North Shore by Kelly Slater as he competes in The Pipeline Masters, the final stop of the 2011 ASP World Tour. Slater first wore the distinctive, handmade and anatomically designed wetsuit in San Francisco last month when he won an historic 11 X ASP World Championship.

Following the success of the Quiksilver Xplosive Boardshort, launched in June of 2011, the Xplosive wetsuit is the answer to what’s next in Quiksilver’s technically designed apparel. The Quiksilver R&D team has been working with leading sports physiotherapist Malcolm Browne to create a wetsuit that assists “explosive” movements, reacts to changes in position and aids control of major muscles- an important factor in reducing injury.

“The power lines have been designed to mimic the naturally-occurring stretch reflexes within the body,” says Browne. ”By adding these lines to the already established reflexes we can amplify the body response of action and reaction. This allows the athlete to move smoothly through all actions which are required by their sport but in a highly energized way. The athlete’s awareness of their body is both complemented and enhanced by the suit.”

XPLOSIVE WETSUIT DESIGN FEATURES INCLUDE:

XPLOSIVE PANELS/BANDS: Anatomically placed panels/bands with a rubber band like quality designed to exaggerate the body’ s response for action with corresponding recoil to bring the body back to its normal position with technology to assist amplified explosive movements.

PROPRIOCEPTION: The athlete’s awareness of their body is both complemented and enhanced by the suit. The quicker the body acts in a sporting sense the quicker the suit will react to that change in position.

INJURY PREVENTION: The wetsuit aids the control of major muscles during explosive actions and also allows for smooth movement. This is highly important in injury prevention.

Kelly and Dane Take Number 1 and 2 at Surfer Poll

Last night, Surfer Magazine hosted their 41st Annual Surfer Poll awards at Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu. Quiksilver had a tremendous showing with Kelly taking first and Dane in second. Congrats guys!

Quiksilver's Kelly Slater clinched an historic and unprecedented 11th ASP World Title today in the cold and challenging waters of San Francisco's Ocean Beach. Slater, 39, is the first surfer to achieve 11 ASP World Titles, an accomplishment spanning two decades of an astounding career during which he has dominated competitive surfing as both the youngest and oldest ASP World Champion.

Name: Kelly Slater
Discipline: Surfer
Hobbies: Golf and looking for waves
Favorite Trophy: The ones l have
What you ride: Channel Island Surfboards
What you drive: Audi A4 S Series 
Twitter: @kellyslater 

From a place beyond greatness comes Robert Kelly Slater. The Floridian’s 11 world titles will never be equaled, not in this lifetime and surely not in lifetimes to come, and his stratospheric success makes him not only the greatest surfer who ever lived but in all probability the world’s greatest athlete. The numbers tell a story – at 20 he became surfing’s youngest world champion, at 39 it’s oldest, there are the 48 tour wins and the $3 million in prizemoney – but the numbers only hint at the real story. Over a 20-year career he’s pushed performance boundaries in small waves, big waves, life-threatening waves. He’s pioneered board design and evolved his surfing to not only compete with, but trump successive generations of challengers. He’s won events at all the world’s most iconic waves, from Pipeline to Teahupoo, Jeffreys Bay, Cloudbeak and Waimea Bay. Charismatic and considered, in many ways he’s become bigger than surfing itself. After winning his 10^th world title in 2010, Kelly said of it, “I don’t know whether that’s my Everest or my K2. I really don’t know. There’s definitely a part of me that wants to go out on top, but there’s another part of me that thinks that if I did go out on top, I’d never know if I could have stayed top.” History will say it was only his K2, and the most phenomenal aspect of the Kelly Slater story is that Kelly believes much of it is still yet to be written. “I definitely feel like my best surfing is yet to come.”