Retired Mick Fanning gives surf lesson to South African superfish Chad Le Clos on Gold Coast

HE might be a surfing novice but there was no danger of South African superfish Chad Le Clos drowning when he had a surfing lesson from Mick Fanning on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

HE might be a surfing novice but there was no danger of South African superfish Chad Le Clos drowning when he had a surfing lesson from Mick Fanning on the Gold Coast on Wednesday.

The bigger worry for Le Clos, who was the star of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games pool with a five medal haul, was Fanning’s reputation as a shark magnet.

Le Clos said he was watching on at home in South Africa when the Coast legend was infamously attacked by a shark while competing in the final of the J-Bay Open World Surf League event at Jeffreys Bay.

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Mick Fanning giving South African swimmer Chad Le Clos a surf lesson.

He said he was ‘too scared’ to surf in Cape Town, where he moved last year from Durban, because of the sharks.

“I grew up in Durban and did a bit of surfing when I was younger,” he said.

“Im a bit too scared to take on Cape Town — the surf’s a bit too big and there are way more sharks than Durban.”

Anna Meares and Jessica Gallagher joined in the surf lesson. Picture: Jerad Williams

Surfing has been included in the Tokyo Olympics but is not part of the Commonwealth Games.

Fanning, who retired from the world tour after last week’s Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, said he would like to see surfing as a Commonwealth Games sport ‘if we had the right location’.

“We don’t want to be surfing terrible little waves because that would hinder the sport,” he said.

“But if we get (artificial) wave pools all around the world, we could easily do it in all of those places.”

Le Clos his a keen surfer back in South Africa. Picture: Jerad Williams

The Gold Coast is seen as a world surfing mecca but Fanning said he was not disappointed the sport hadn’t made the cut for the Coast Games even as a demonstration sport.

“There’s so many disciplines that don’t actually make the Comm Games,”

“It’s one of those things — if we got there one day, that’d be awesome.”

Originally published as Retired Mick Fanning gives surf lesson to South African superfish Chad Le Clos on Gold Coast