Kelly Slater has left the South African contest site in an ambulance after injuring his foot free surfing Boneyards this morning.

The injury could have serious implications for the rest of Kelly’s year, which he has previously claimed could be his last on tour. ‘I’m going to literally hang myself tomorrow, watching the waves…That’s J-bay and Tahiti out for the year’ he said mournfully as he sat icing his foot, later quipping ‘I’m getting chaired up for the wrong reasons’ as he was carried to a waiting ambulance.

Kelly revealed last year in an instagram post he’s been struggling with several niggling injuries over the last few years, and it’s been visible in his surfing, with no major results to speak of so far this year and several early round losses.

We very much hope that the injury is not as bad as first thought, and Kelly is back in a jersey in time for Tahiti, if not the tail end of this event, however we fear the GOAT knows his own body pretty well.

UPDATE:

You ever folded your entire foot backwards? If you try it sometime, this is what it might look like. I pulled into a barrel this morning and the whitewash as it closed out bounced the board back into my foot, taking all the pressure into the metatarsals, kinda like smashing my foot with a big hammer as hard as I can. Sorta feels like I’m giving birth out of my foot right now! I’m guessing surgery and 6 week holiday is in order. Not looking forward to 30 hour flight home before surgery though. Ouch! It sucks but so many people deal with such horrible things around this world everyday that a broken foot is pretty minor in the scheme of things. Sometimes a bad thing is a good thing. I’ll make the best of my time off. #ThatsGonnaLeaveAMark #INeedPainkillers

A post shared by Kelly Slater (@kellyslater) on Jul 17, 2017 at 5:53am PDT

Cover photo: Steve Sherman / WSL