“40 Years After His Mother”: Surfing Legend Kelly Slater Applauds 25-Year-Old for Taking Forward His Family Legacy in the Sport

As a highly competitive sport, surfing has historically included a slew of yearly tournaments. The Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach is the world’s longest-running professional surfing competition. Due to its historic significance, its winner is showered with praise and acclaim, and their legacy is given a tremendous boost. Ethan Ewing, a well-known surfer, rewrote surfing history today by winning the championship in grand fashion.

Kelly Slater, the legendary 51-year-old surfer, couldn’t overlook Ethan Ewing’s historic achievement, so he congratulated him on his Instagram story. This victory allowed the legend to tell how a legacy was restored.

A perfect win on a perfect time

Ethan Ewing, who defeated world champions en route to today’s finals, was just unstoppable. Today marks the 40th anniversary of his late mother Helen Lambert‘s victory in the Rip Curl Pro Bell Beach, which Ethan Ewing rang the bell for. Ewing has now won two championship tour titles in his career, the first, in 2022 at J-Bay. This victory boosts him to the fourth spot in the standings, heading into Margaret River. In addition to avenging his semi-final defeat against Filipe Toledo from the previous year, his triumph was beautiful payback. This time, Ewing and Toledo met in the semifinals, but Ewing prevailed thanks to a heat score of 8.43.

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During the decisive duel with Ryan Callinan, Ewing was in tune with the sea and maintained his undivided attention. He was able to throw strong turns on the waves with ease, contributing to his 14.50 heat total. Callinan, on the other hand, had a hard time generating a meaningful score and settled for an 11.00 overall. With this 3.50-point margin, Ewing was the hero of the day, finishing off the finals in grand fashion and reestablishing his family’s legacy. The surfer’s achievement was acknowledged by Kelly Slater on his Instagram story, where he wrote congratulating Ewing, “Big congrats to @ethan_ewing for his maiden Bells win, 40 years after his mother (#HelenLambert) won the event. I’m sure it won’t be his only bell. Nice work, buddy.” 

How did the surfing world react to this historic feat?

Kelly Slater did share the World Surf League’s (WSL) Instagram post, in which they expressed their congratulations to the pro surfer. In the post, WSL wrote in the caption, “@ethan_ewing gets to ring his first bell exactly 40 years after his mother Helen did in 1983. #RipCurlProBellsBeach.” As soon as the post went up, it was inundated with well-wishes from Ewing’s surfing fan base.

Everyone loved the performance of the star throughout the contest, as one comment read, “So rad!” The contest was completed with ease by the pro surfer, as one comment read, “@ethan_ewing is poise to win this bells from the get go. It’s like the universe is conspiring to assist him in every heat. Well deserved comfortable win.”

As his family legacy was rebuilt, a lot of fans congratulated the star, as one comment read, “Total legend @ethan_ewing and what a brilliant and deserved win. Your mum and all of straddie are thrilled with the win!” The surfing star also made his nation proud, as one comment read, “Congratulations @ethan_ewing legendary performance. Making all of Oz proud.”

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