Kelly Slater never ceases to amaze.

Sometimes, all he has to do is let the words flow and it becomes instant news.

Take, for instance, a couple of verbal thunderbolts the 11-time world champion gave far, far from the group of microphones that were directly aimed at freshly minted world champion Italo Ferreira at Thursday’s season-ending World Surf League awards ceremonies after the Billabong Pipe Masters.

“It was possible if I won today I would have retired,” said Slater, who is generally acknowledged as the greatest competitive surfer this blue earth with frothy whitecaps has seen.

Wha … what?

“That was a realistic possibility,” he continued. “But you know, it wasn’t my day. I had that in my head: ‘That would be a great way to go out.’ ”

Slater has done the retirement thing before. It was many moons ago, when some of today’s championship tour competitors were toddlers. It didn’t last long, turning out to be merely a few years’ break.

But the 47-year-old superstar of the sport is blunt in his assessment that retirement is not all that far off, even though he proved yet again that he is at the top of his game, winning the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing while narrowly missing out on a spot in the 2020 Olympics.

“The bummer about that is I’m positive I’ll be retired by then,” Slater said, when asked about taking aim at the 2024 Olympics.

And, man, it’s going to hurt him inside if he’s not there. Though not finalized yet, the 2024 Paris Olympics organizers are trying for Teahupoo (Tahiti, a part of French Polynesia) as the venue, with the type of barreling, cavernous bombs that Slater craves.

“I love Teahupoo, so I don’t know if I can somehow get myself a spot on some other team for another country,” he said. “I’m going to have to dig into my DNA history here and find out where my nearest relatives come from.”

Slater not getting a chance to be an Olympian, most would agree, would be a missed opportunity for the world as well as Slater himself.

When the summer of 2024 rolls around, Slater will be 52, but he’s not worried about his skills deteriorating.

“Surf-wise I’d be fine,” he said. “I think my level will still be fine and be a realistic threat to win it. I don’t think John John (Florence) or any of those guys would take me lightly. They may be favored at that point, but if I could get in there, I’d have a shot just like anyone. It will be a tube-riding contest at Teahupoo if that clears the IOC.”

And extreme comfort in the tube is one of Slater’s most defining traits. There’s just no other way to explain how he continues to defy the odds and make such a major impact year in and year out. The man just finished as a semifinal loser in the contest surf fans look at like golf fans see the Masters. He also just happened to win his third Vans Triple Crown, almost as an afterthought, 21 years after winning it the first time.

“Everyone talks about my age,” he added. “I don’t think it’s my age. Look, I know the skill out here. I know what you gotta do. I can’t say it’s easy, but it’s something I’m so used to after surfing this reef for 35 years. This is probably one of the easier waves for me to do well at because I know the wave so well and it doesn’t intimidate me and I know what size will score what. I’ve been through all the scenarios, been through more heats out here than anyone, so it becomes sort of second nature.”

Naturally, Slater benefited big-time from that supreme knowledge at least twice in the Pipe contest. In the round of 32 last week, he found a Backdoor tube for a 10.00 — without a doubt the best wave of the contest and the whole Triple Crown — that somehow stayed open for an eternity while he cruised like a locomotive behind the curtain. Then on Thursday, he was 40 seconds from being eliminated by Jack Freestone, needing a 2.60, and a small Backdoor offering suddenly materialized that he turned into a 6.70 to advance to the quarterfinals.

“How lucky is this guy?” Florence, who beat out Slater for the second of two U.S. Olympic team spots, said about Slater’s good fortune with that one.

In a classic understatement amid a whirlwind of activity Thursday before Ferreira’s world title win, Slater’s Triple Crown victory and Florence’s Olympic qualification, Slater said, “There’s a lot of little stories going on.”

Winning the Vans Triple Crown and seriously thinking about retirement had he nailed down an eighth Pipe Masters championship is one of those seemingly little things made much bigger because his name is Kelly Slater.