Kai Otton has retired from competitive surfing after failing to requalify to for the 2017 championship tour. With a career spanning 10 years, Ottz has featured on many a highlight reel (especially at Fiji, Tahiti and Pipeline) and his dry wit and honest post-heat interviews will be sorely missed.
After losing to Kolohe Andino in round 3 of the Pipe Masters after leading for most of their heat, the 37-year-old confessed to Rosie Hodge that the result would mean this would be his last event on tour having opted not to requalify via the QS next season.
“It’s kind of a forced retirement,” said Otton. “I didn’t really want to, I would have gone again next year if all the boys were there. (But) I’m not gonna chase the QS, so this is probably my last event.
“It’s been fun, it’s pretty piddly little Backdoor and that’s always a challenge on your backhand, and a bit of a cruel way to finish with Kolohe pipping me there at the end, but yeah, I’m gonna do a couple of little events near home, get out of my bed and go do it, and just go surf… hang out with Taj, get barrelled.
“It’s gotta sink in first (before thinking about events next year), it’s only just hit home. But thanks to everyone that got me here. It started with my family at home, and obviously I went up to Sydney as a young guy, and got looked after by a heap of guys at Aloha, and then the Insight Crew, and then all the crew at Reef that’ve supported me the last five years, in America, Europe, and Australia especially. It’s been great, I really appreciate it.
“It’s been a dream. It was looking like I maybe wasn’t gonna qualify, I didn’t get here til I was 27, and you can only go so many years until you have to check yourself and the reality sinks in that you might not make it, and I made it on that last year that I decided would be my last year. And 10 years later… it’s been fun.”
Otton will be remembered as a gutsy competitor that could scrap it out with the best of them. His win at the 2013 Rip Curl Pro Portugal at Supertubes was his career best result while his performance massive Cloudbreak in 2012, and Teahupoo over the years have solidified his reputation as one of the hardest charging goofy-footers to throw on a jersey.
