{"id":25451,"date":"2023-04-27T02:29:46","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T02:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/surfing-eliminated-slater-handed-wildcard\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T02:34:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T02:34:11","slug":"surfing-eliminated-slater-handed-wildcard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/surfing-eliminated-slater-handed-wildcard\/","title":{"rendered":"Surfing-Eliminated Slater handed wildcard to continue on WSL Championship Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Surfing great Kelly Slater has been given a wildcard to remain on the World Surf League’s (WSL) Championship Tour after the American missed the mid-season cut at Margaret River in Australia.<\/p>\n

The 11-times world champion will be able to surf and earn ranking points at the remaining events in 2023 and for the first half of the 2024 tour, the WSL said. <\/p>\n

The 51-year-old will therefore be eligible for the WSL Final 5 rankings, where the top five surfers compete for the world title at the Rip Curl WSL Finals at San Clemente, California in September.<\/p>\n

“Slater’s ranking points will also give him the opportunity to compete for provisional qualification for the Olympic Games Paris 2024,” the WSL said.<\/p>\n

Slater was knocked out by Australian Liam O’Brien early in the Margaret River Pro last week, which left him below the mid-season cut line.<\/p>\n

After his elimination, Slater said he was not sure of his future.<\/p>\n

“It is what it is. Let’s see how things turn out,” he told media at the event.<\/p>\n

Some surfing media criticised the wildcard decision, saying it was motivated by commercial considerations and made a mockery of the WSL’s ranking system.<\/p>\n

But the WSL said the decision was in accordance with its rules.<\/p>\n

“The WSL Rule Book allows for only former World Champions and previous WSL Final 5 competitors to be eligible to earn points in the second half of the season as the Season Wildcards,” WSL Chief of Sport Jessi Miley-Dyer said.<\/p>\n

The next event is held at the Slater-built Surf Ranch in Lemoore, California, on May 27-28.<\/p>\n

France’s Johanne Defay was also awarded a wildcard to continue on the Women’s Championship Tour after falling well outside the mid-season cut.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n

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MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Surfing great Kelly Slater has been given a wildcard to remain on the World Surf League’s (WSL) Championship Tour after the American missed the mid-season cut at Margaret River in Australia. The 11-times world champion will be able to surf and earn ranking points at the remaining events in 2023 and for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-25451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3Q01Q-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25455,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25451\/revisions\/25455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}