“Bring It Back”: Fans Left in Frenzy as Resurfaced Video Reveals Intense Surfing Clash at 2024 Olympics Site 9 Years Ago

The 2023 WSL campaign is winding down. There is just the Outerknown Tahiti Pro Trails left until the Rip Curl Finals. The surfing competition will be held at Teahupo’o, a hamlet on the southwestern coast of Tahiti, French Polynesia, home to some of the world’s most terrifying waves. The place is especially significant as a historical and cultural artifact since it will host the surfing competition at the 2024 Olympics. In the semi-finals of the WSL event in Tahiti in the 2014 season, John John Florence and Kelly Slater got into a fierce brawl that surf fans will never forget.

Recently, footage from the 2014 Billabong Pro Tahiti was uploaded to Surf Radio’s social media account, making it once again available online. The footage highlighted the thrilling match between world champions John John Florence (two times) and Kelly Slater (eleven times). As it brought back fond memories for many surfers, this quickly spread throughout the web.

Now that’s a classic clip

Although several generations of surfers have been successful, none has ruled the World Surf League as Kelly Slater has for over twenty years. Slater has won a total of 11 WSL world championships, although he is still actively competing. At the same time, John John Florence was also competing in the big-wave category, and he was quickly becoming a household name thanks to his legendary wave-riding abilities. It was a fierce fight between two individuals at the height of their powers. Only four waves were used in the contest, yet the action was as fierce as the barrels in Tahiti’s monster waves.

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Slater’s first wave was a perfect 10, and the majority of his maneuvers were barrels. But John John Florence was also a powerful scorer, scoring a 9.90 on the first wave. Both surfers felt the heat, as the margin of victory was barely 0.10 points. It wasn’t over when Slater scored 8.17 and Florence scored 9.10 in the second round. Slater’s huge 9.77 on the third wave really put the heat on the Hawaiian surfer. Then, to further his case, Florence scored a 9.40, but this wasn’t sufficient. The Hawaiian surfer, though, caught one more wave and posted a 9.87 on it. Both superstars scored a total of 19.77, but Slater advanced to the 2014 Billabong Pro Tahiti finals due to his consistent and impressive performance.

The re-emergence of this semi-final, one of the most intense surfing bouts the world has ever seen, thrilled both longtime surf enthusiasts and those who had just recently discovered the sport.

Surfing fans are drooling over this

Surf Radio posted a video of this legendary surf competition on Instagram. A massive community of surfers swarmed the post’s comments section almost immediately.

As any fan would claim, this comment read, “Best heat of all time.” Tahiti’s waves are simple to ride, but the legends proved it by posting such scores. As this comment read, “Now that’s tube riding.”

It looks like a veteran fan misses a similar type of surf action; as they say, “Bring it back… That was one if the greatest heats eva.” This fan was just stunned, as they say, “Wow!just WOW! They were both dying to stand tall no handed but were both soooo deep they couldn’t!!”

The surf competition was thrilling, and it showed how fierce the heats can become in locations like Tahiti, which is known for its brutal waves.

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