Gary Elkerton

Gary Elkerton, nicknamed Kong, is an Australian surfer born on 21 August 1964 in Ballina, New South Wales, and raised on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland around his family prawn trawler. He joined the professional tour halfway through 1984 and spent twelve years on it, finishing world runner-up three times, in 1987, 1990 and 1993, which earned him the label of the best surfer never to have won the world title. He was the first non-Hawaiian to win the Hawaiian Triple Crown, doing so twice, won the Pipeline Masters in 1989 and is the only professional to take two consecutive events at Sunset Beach. After retiring from the tour in 1996 he won the World Masters title in 2000, 2001 and 2003, was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame in 2009 and published an autobiography, Kong: The Life and Times of a Surfing Legend.