Slater pulls off 'best air ever made' in surfing

Competition in the Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal had been called off for the day on Friday, but that didn't stop Slater, 42, from paddling out into the break where he once again proved his prowess with a massive manoeuvre that was captured on camera. One surfing magazine has described it as "arguably the best air ever made".

A spectator on the beach could be heard exclaiming in disbelief as Slater gathered speed and launched into the air, spinning at least 540 degrees before landing in the whitewash and rotating a further 180 degrees.

There is some debate about whether the move should be classified a 540 or a 720-degree manoeuvre, and Slater himself didn't have any clarification.

"I don't know, I don't have a name for it. It's an aerial," Slater said after paddling back to the beach.

"I was just going fast and Kolohe [Andino, another professional surfer] was talking about how this crazy wind air, so I just hit this close-out and just spun as hard as I could and I ended up backwards and I thought, 'Oh I might make this thing', and I just spun out and [thought], 'Oh cool.' "

"I was really surprised when I was still on my board. Like 'Woah, cool, I made it.' "

Andino, who was also out in the water that day, was shown the footage and said: "Oh my gosh. 42. It was really like inverted, which makes it sick."

Surfing Magazine said it was a "blatant reminder that [Slater] is still the best man to ever set foot on a surfboard", while Stab Magazine, another surfing publication, described it as "arguably the best air ever made".

"It's really hard to argue that Kelly Slater isn't the greatest athlete of all time. This is the shit the kids are meant to be doing, not the oldest guy on tour," Stab Magazine said.

Slater, who is second in the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) world rankings, was later knocked out in the third round of the Moche Rip Curl Pro Portugal by Spain's Aritz Aranburu.