Rip Curl Pro: Three-time world champion Mick Fanning farewells pro surfing at Bells Beach
SIXTEEN years, three world titles and one fight with a monster shark later, it’s come full circle for Michael Eugene Fanning.
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HE was a scrawny kid with a crop of white hair who loved Paddle Pops, rugby league and his family.
A son raised by Irish parents to love and be loyal, to cherish family above all, to be a good sport, polite and respectful.
A surfer with mongrel who drawled rather than talked but surfed so fast he was dubbed “White Lightning”.
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A teenager who learned his smarts on the streets of western Sydney before heading north to ignite his passion.
Sixteen years, three world titles and one fight with a monster shark later, it’s come full circle for Michael Eugene Fanning.
As he prepares to step off the world tour after this weekend’s Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, you still see the boy Fanning was in the man he has become.
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He still follows Penrith Panthers despite calling the Gold Coast home, he is unfailingly polite, intensely loyal, family oriented and, yes, he’s still lightning fast.
He’s a man who always scratched the initials of his late brother Sean — who died when Fanning was just 17 — into the wax on his board before going out to surf.
He’s a man who says his older brother Peter was with him as he surfed — unsuccessfully — for a fourth world crown just hours after hearing of his second sibling’s death.
“They don’t go away. They’ll always be here,” Fanning told The Sunday Telegraph.
He leaves Australian surfing in “great shape” with the man who paddled to his aid while he punched the shark at J-Bay in South Africa in 2015 the surfer he believes could be our next men’s champion.
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“At the moment Wilko (Matt Wilkinson), Owen (Wright) and Julian (Wilson) are leading the charge but there’s a group of young guys who are pushing boundaries as well,” said Fanning, who has taken up a role as an Olympic selector and mentor.
“I am getting the feel Julian Wilson has finally put all the pieces together.”
Wilson, who Fanning hugged in relief and thanked after his shark attack, won the world tour opener on the Gold Coast last month despite a shoulder injury so severe his arm felt like a “lifeless limb”.
“How brave was that? He certainly called on all his dad courage with that one,” Fanning said of the new father.
It was Fanning’s courage in not just fighting off a shark but returning to the water just weeks later that earned him accolades from around the world.
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When this self-described “glass-half-full kind of guy” had another close call with a shark at the same spot as his 2015 attack last year, his reaction was unexpected.
“It was a whopper but what a beauty,” Fanning said.
Now, he prepares to dive into life away from the world tour that made him one of Australia’s greatest and most admired athletes.
“It isn’t sad, it’s a celebration of all the great things I have had until now,’’ he said.
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Birth of White Lighting
When Mick Fanning won his first world tour event at the Rip Curl Pro as a “cocky” teenage wildcard in 2001, he really didn’t think life could get any better.
“That was a special one,’’ Fanning says of the victory which announced him as a future champion at just 19.
Bells Beach remains a special place for Fanning which is why he chose it for his swan song event. “There’s just something really magical about it,’’ he says. “It’s hallowed turf.”
Family tragedy
The deaths of his brothers, Sean, in 1998, in a car accident when Fanning was 17, and Peter, in 2015, on the eve of his dramatic Pipe Masters world title showdown, left an indelible mark.
“I think of them a lot still. They are always with me.’’
Baby steps
Fanning qualified for the world tour in 2002 where he finished fifth in the world and earned the Rookie of the Year award, living up to his new White Lightning moniker.
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Injury setback
It was an injury which could have, perhaps should have, ended his career prematurely.
When Fanning ripped the hamstring off his bone in 2004 he was told he might never surf again.
But Fanning worked overtime to rehabilitate from the injury and the rest is history.
Maiden world crown
Fanning added his name to a list of the best surfers on the planet with his maiden world title win in Brazil in 2007 — a win he dedicated to his brother Sean.
Fanning said he felt Sean was with him as he surfed, with his presence felt throughout his road to victory.
World title No. 2
The second world crown came in 2009 when Fanning beat fellow Coolie Kid Joel Parkinson to become only the fourth Australian man to win multiple world crowns.
He equalled the record of Tom Carroll (1983, 1984) and Damien Hardman (1987, 1991) and eventually ended up just a world title behind four-time world champion Mark Richards (1979-1982).
Three times a champ
Fanning was in a philosophical mood after he won his third crown by advancing into the quarter-finals of Pipeline in 2013.
“I’m still pinching myself,’’ a shocked Fanning told The Daily Telegraph at the time.
“I just saw the set on the horizon, and I thought ‘all right, whatever’s going to come, I’m just going to try and pick the right one’.
“You dream about these sorts of things as I kid but you never really expect them to happen like this. That wave came and it was so beautiful.’’
Shark wrangler
“I want hugs, lot of hugs. Big hugs’’ a rattled Fanning said on his arrival in Australia after his “miracle’’ survival of a shark attack in South Africa while surfing the final of the J-Bay Open with Julian Wilson.
“I was just sitting there and I felt something just get stuck in my leg rope, and I was kicking, trying to get it away,” Fanning said.
“I was just about to start moving and then I felt something grab [and] get stuck in my leg rope. And I instantly just jumped away and it just kept coming at my board. I was just started kicking and screaming. Wow!
“I just saw fin, I didn’t see the teeth. I was waiting for the teeth to come at me as I was swimming.”
Surfing on
Fanning decided to stay in the sport and surf on in the wake of the 2015 attack.
“Surfing has given myself and my family so much,’’ Fanning said
“It has got me through the hardest times of my life. To turn my back on it wouldn’t make sense.’’
Surfing with sorrow
It was supposed to have been a highlight of a pretty rugged year and an extraordinary career — potentially a record-equalling (for an Australian) world crown.
But hours before his showdown for the world crown at Pipeline in late 2015, Fanning received a call informing him his brother Peter had died.
“I’m almost in tears every time I’ve paddled out and I’m just kind of going with the emotions,” Fanning said. “Even in the water I’m going through waves of emotion.
“I had a friend tell me once that we can do anything and you just have to do it the best you can and stay true to yourself and things will happen.”
Dealing with his new celebrity
In the aftermath of his shark attack, the death of his second brother and a marriage breakdown, Fanning said he hated the celebrity he attracted
“It is not something I like to chase. I’m happy to sweep through the shadows,’ he said.
“It was hard. Dealing with stuff I have never really dealt with.
“I don’t really want to be that famous.’’
Shark close call, Mark II
In 2017 Fanning returned to surf at J-Bay in the annual world tour event and had a second close call with a shark.
But instead of being freaked out, Fanning admired the beauty of nature.
“I’m a glass half full type of guy,” he said. “It was a whopper, but what a beauty,” he said.
“It was just so beautiful.
“I’m fine. It was seriously just one of those things.”
Cheers Mick
Fanning decided to end his world tour career where it all began — at Bells Beach.
“I feel like I’ve just lost the drive to compete day in day out now,” Fanning said.
“I’m just not enjoying it as much as I was in the past. I still love surfing, and I’m still super excited by it, but I feel that’s there’s other paths for me to take at this stage in my life.
“As for choosing to retire at Bells, I’ve always had in mind that my last event on Tour
was going to be Bells.
“That’s basically where I started my career, it was my first ever CT win, and I feel really connected down there.”