With Bells on: the flying-high formula Jack built
Jack Robinson is looking good to become Australia’s first men’s world surfing champion since Mick Fanning a decade ago. Who is he? “Dude,” he says. “All I’m trying to do is fly.”
Here’s the moment that changed Jack Robinson’s career and life. The moment he told himself, “F*** it! Be a free bird.”
Know Robinson’s story? It’s probably time to start telling it because he’s on track to becoming Australia’s first men’s world surfing champion since Mick Fanning in 2013.
The WA hippie with a fierce competitive streak is on top of the World Surf League rankings heading into Tuesday’s start to the Rip Curl Pro Bells Beach, where he’s drawn Kelly Slater in the first round after the 11-time world champion spent Sunday afternoon in Lewis Hamilton’s corner of the Mercedes-Benz garage at the demolition derby of an Australian Grand Prix.
Robinson versus Slater is the headline act of day one. The 25-year-old was a red-hot grom who struggled to make an impact on the pro tour until a couple of years ago. He was bogged down in trying to please sponsors and live up to the hype of his sparkling junior career and get results and match everyone’s expectations. It was doing his head in and a few salty old types had written him off. It was at the WSL event Portugal in 2022 that he dropped the F-bomb and his cares. He won his first contest there and then at Peniche and now he’s the man to beat for the Bells and world titles.
F*** it! Be a free bird. Who doesn’t get a tingle from the very thought of it. They were the exact words he told himself. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says. “One hundred per cent. You’ve got to be yourself on this tour. In this life. Don’t you think? So many people aren’t. It’s ridiculous. If I find myself not being who I want to be, or who I am, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’ The problem was that I spent a lot of time worrying about the judgments of others. You get to the stage where you think, well, f*** it! None of that matters. You’re going to be judged no matter what you do. So you may as well be yourself.”
What brought it on? “My head wasn’t in the right place,” he says. “When I wasn’t getting it right on tour people would say, ‘Oh, he’s struggling with his surfing.’ But that wasn’t right. It wasn’t my surfing. Mentally was where I was going wrong. I was trying hard to succeed but there was a mental block there I had to get past. Everyone has a lot going on. It might be family stuff or whatever – I’ll dive deeper into it one day but at the most basic level, I just had to work out who I was. We’re all on a journey, right? A day just came when I decided I wanted to be free.”
Robinson and NSW 20-year-old Molly Picklum are the World No.1s going into the 60th edition of the oldest surfing contest in the world. It’s the farewell to competition for Australia’s Olympic bronze medalist Owen Wright, who’s drawn Brazil’s world champion Felipe Toledo in round one. Wright’s sister, Tyler, of course, is one of the smoking hot favourites to ring the famous old bell in the women’s division.
“Bells is such a special thing to Australian surfers,” Owen Wright says. “My whole family’s here and I’ll cherish this forever. I’ve had a career with a lot of up and down moments and I’ve had a bit of time to reflect recently and I’ve come to this realisation of, ‘What a wild journey.’ What an amazing experience this whole world tour is. I’m kind of patting myself on the back and thinking, ‘You know what? Good work, man.’ Happy days ahead.”
Robinson versus Slater is the real eye-catcher. So, what exactly is it to be a free bird? “You just spread your wings and go,” he says. “See where it takes you. Spread your wings as wide as they will go and just be who you want to be. Who you really are. Stop trying to be perfect all the time. Stop trying to please everyone else. I mentioned that line to a few of the other guys on the tour and they were like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s the way.’ There’s nothing complicated about it, which is why it’s so freeing. We all want to do the same thing, I think. Dude, all I’m trying to do is fly.”
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