[ HAPPY ACCIDENT ]

This was after Mick injured his leg in a freak accident in 2004, as he tried to rehabilitate the leg and rebuild his career. Seemed to work out okay too.

HAPPY ACCIDENT

He ripped his hamstring clean off the bone, spent five months out of the water, missed most of the season, and only just scraped back on the tour with an injury wildcard. So why has Mick Fanning just had the best year of his life?

By Tim Baker

Mick’s account of the surgery that put his ruined leg back together is gut-churning stuff.

“What they do, they slice the back of my arse open and peel it back and they drill into your arse bone and put, like, a grappling hook in there,” Mick explains, seriously. Upon this grappling hook, after all, rests the future of one of Australia’s greatest surfing talents.

“It’s so strong the doctor said he was lifting me off the table just with the grappling hook. And then they sew the ligament on to the grappling hook. So, for the first six, eight weeks, that’s why you can’t do anything, it’s just the stitches holding it together. And you’ve just got to wait for the scar tissue to grow over the grappling hook.”

So, that all stays in there, SW asks?

“Yeah, it’s in there for good now, so got a bit of metal in me,” Mick chuckles. Do you set off the metal detectors at the airport?

“Nah, surprisingly, no. Just as well. They’d want to search my arse,” Mick laughs. “Nah, it’s all good. The attachment, when it’s fully healed, will be stronger than my other leg.”

One of the most meteoric rises in recent surfing history, Mick’s stunning upward trajectory to the top of the pro surfing heap was brought crashing down to earth - or rather, tropical reef - with one mistimed floater in remote Indonesia in mid-2004. The resultant injury, a rare condition where the ligament attached to the hamstring muscle is pulled clean off the bone, threatened to end a brilliant career.

Mick’s been out of the water for five months, confined to the couch for nearly two months, missed two thirds of the 2004 tour and only snuck back in to the WCT on an injury wildcard. All this and he still calls 2004 “the funnest year I’ve ever had.”

Why? The kid was tired, jaded, close to burn out from a whirlwind few years since he erupted on to the pro surfing landscape as a gangly, lightning-fast teenager in the late ‘90s. He took out the WQS in 2001, jumped straight to 5th in the world on his first year on the WCT in 2002, and went one better in 2003, finishing 4th. Expectations were piled on him to break the great Irons/Slater domination of the tour, to restore Australian pro surfing pride, and the pressure started to take a toll.

“I don’t think I’d been home for more than a month in five years. You’d have 10 days or maximum three weeks ,” says Mick.

“Everything just got to be so stressful. You get all these people in your ear going, if you don’t do it this year, or, you’ve got to be world champ this year ... Even just little random things like, oh, I’ve got my money on you this year.”

Even before the 2004 season started, Mick knew he needed a break. “I really lost the passion for my surfing last year. I was just so over the Gold Coast. I think I got drunk for like a week straight. And then I just packed up my stuff and went, I’m out of here ... I went with (photographer) Johnny Frank and (videographer) Shagga down the south coast, caught up with Lowey and got to see my dad. It was really cool. We’d just surf all day. There was no pressure, no crowds, just rock up and go surfing. I really enjoyed my surfing again. Went to see my dad in the afternoons and had a beer with him ... I’d just have one and I’d be so buggered from surfing I’d just be falling asleep. And then wake up at five in the morning and go check the surf again and go surfing all day. It really brought my passion back for surfing. It was pretty cool.” Even so, Mick’s heart was barely in it when the new ASP season rolled around in March, 2004. He began the year with an uncharacteristic 33rd at the Quiksilver Pro, and followed it up with lacklustre results at Bells, Fiji and Tahiti. The injury, just prior to J-Bay, put him out of his misery and neatly coincided with the completion of his million dollar dream home, high on Kirra Hill.

“If I didn’t injure myself then I would have been in and out of the joint, wouldn’t have got to know my own house,” says Mick. “As soon as I got out of surgery I came home and sat in the home theatre and put my leg up for six weeks and stayed like that, and just watched movies and slept a lot. It was really relaxing, didn’t have any appointments. I was waking up at 11 o’clock every day, having a sleep during the day and going to bed 11 o’clock at night. Really got to know my mates again. Coming home for a few weeks here and there you think you know your mates. It was cool just to hang out with them. Caught up with mates I probably never would have caught up with. My mates were pretty much the thing that kept me going. I couldn’t drive for six or eight weeks and they’d come and get me out of the house, drive me to get food, go to a movie or something like that, just get me out of the house. It was really cool.”

Mick’s obviously house proud of the sprawling, three level mansion he spent a cool $1.2 million to have built. He gives me the full tour, pointing out its many features as we go. There’s a full-on home theatre with leather couches and massive flat screen TV, a fish pond and miniature waterfall by the front door, complete with Aboriginal mural, a whole separate party room above the garage with pool table and killer sound system that’s already rattling the neighbours. The kitchen’s all granite benchtops and stainless steel everything, Italian coffee machine built-in to the wall. The bathrooms would make the contestants on the Block weep with envy, with their earthy colours and river stones and translucent glass tiles. There’s a magnificent, handmade, New Zealand dining table and chairs, the wood supposedly thousands of years old, inlaid with pebbles. The base of the table is an enormous tree stump and Mick gets me to bend down and admire where you can still see the tree sap in the grain. His bedroom’s on its own on the top level with enormous walk-in wardrobe and ensuite. He doesn’t have the sweeping panoramic ocean views that Parko’s got, just round the corner, but he can see the Tweed River mouth and D-bah from one window, and gazes out over the surrounding suburbs and hinterland. The earthworks alone to anchor the castle on the side of this hill cost $200,000. The garage houses 30 or 40 boards, Mick’s Red Bull jetski, his new red Porsche and a Jeep Grand Cherokee.

It must be kind of unsettling to think that one blown floater could put all this hard-won wealth and comfort in jeopardy. But Mick reckons even in his darkest moments after the accident, he never considered the possibility that his career could be over. He’s convinced the injury happened for a reason (“Everything happens for a reason,” he insists) to give him a breather from the constant travel and competition, give him time to process the last few whirlwind years, and reset his focus for the year ahead. He’s been training like a maniac, has cleaned up his diet and found a new confidence and hunger, not to mention a fair degree of happiness, through his recovery.

“I was telling my mates, it’s probably the funnest year I’ve ever had, even though I couldn’t surf, just hanging with my mates, doing what I wanted to do. It was really really fun,” says Mick. “I wouldn’t have moved into my house and got to know my house. I wouldn’t have changed my diet. I wouldn’t have done this training. All that kind of stuff is a blessing in disguise.”

He still recalls the fateful wipeout with a trace of disbelief, that his world could come crashing down so suddenly and randomly. He was on a boat trip in Sumatra, not far from the epicentre of the shattering Tsunami that would devastate the region six months later, 10 hours boat trip and at least a couple of flights from a first world hospital. “It was only small, only about four, six feet. I came along this wave and I went up and did a floater, and as I was up on the roof it jacked up and as I came down I tail dropped and my back foot came off the board a little bit and when I went to put it back on I missed it and so when I landed, I did the splits. My front foot’s still on, I was in the splits and then the wave hit me in the back as well and pushed me further through it. I tore my muscle and then all of a sudden I got a sensation that went down my leg, like a cramp, and then my whole leg cramped up and if I moved it was just worse. And I remember being underwater thinking, ‘Oh, I can shake it off and paddle back out.’ But as I was trying to kick up, it just got worse and worse and I’ve gone, ‘Oh no, I’ve done something really bad.’ Got back on to my board, copped three or four more waves on the head, got washed into the little keyhole, and just called to the boat. I had to hold my leg ‘cause it was just dangling. I couldn’t get into the boat. At that stage I was still really shocked. I was just trying to get to the boat. I held on to the back of the boat ‘cause I couldn’t get in, and they towed me over to the big boat, and then I couldn’t even get into the big boat. I had to get the boys to lift me up and then I got to the boat and that’s when the waterworks started.”

Mick’s unabashed about the distress he was in, and the soothing effects of some high dosage valium. “The captain gave me some drugs. It was the first time I’d had powerful drugs like that before. You could tell as soon as it kicked in because I still had a bit of waterworks going and hating life and then all of a sudden I was just cracking jokes, being an idiot,” he laughs. But his ordeal was far from over. “Had to sail for 10 hours. Had to bribe the Indo guys to get us on the plane. Flew from Sibolga to Medan, Medan to Singapore, Singapore home ... When I got to Singapore I went to see the doctors there and hit them up and they pumped me full of valium again.”

He went to see the Brisbane Bronco’s team doctor, who put him in touch with a specialist in Sydney, Merv Cross. “He got on the phone and said, get down here straight away. Went and saw him and his partner David Wood and they booked me into surgery straight away. For that injury, those two between them have done the most in the world and they’ve only done 35. They said if I didn’t get the surgery done I’d probably never run again and would barely be able to surf ... It’s a really rare injury. A lot of physios don’t pick it up at first. They think it’s just a tear in the muscle.”

When did he realise the full extent of the injury? “I think when I first did it I was just spewing that I was going to miss J-Bay, and then after talking to the physios and that I thought I might be able to get to Japan. But when I talked to Dr Wood he just went, nah, you’re out of the water for six months. And I went, oh, okay. I better hope I get the injury wildcard.”

What does he remember about the surgery? “I was nervous but I wasn’t. I was worried about it in the back of my mind but I had so much confidence in the doctor I knew it would be fine,” he says. “I got my robe on and I was sitting there waiting and I was like, let’s do this. I want to start eating again ... They put the drip in and then the nurse had this huge needle with all this white gear. I’m like, what’s that? She goes, you might enjoy this. She put it in and I just felt this cold go all up my arm. And I went, whoa, and then I looked at her and went, boof, out. And then I woke up in the recovery room and I was dreaming I was out with my mates and I lost my memory on my way home. You know how you feel after a big night out, all hungover? ... I fully thought I’d just got home from Surfers or something. Then they just started injecting me with morphine and I’m like, it still hurts. More, more more. After that it was pretty good.”

Mick’s doctor said the operation could not have gone any better. “They were really stoked. He said it all went perfect,” says Mick. “I should be able to surf 100% and go for stuff by the end of the month.”

“He was a model patient,” says Dr David Wood, who’s performed more of these operations than anyone, with many high profile athletes among his patients. “He came down for all his follow ups. He even came and saw me when we were on holidays in Mooloolaba. He arrived in his red Porsche, the kids were very impressed, and he signed all there caps and t-shirts ... He’s done his rehab really conscientiously, he’s done exactly what I’ve said. He was fantastic, he didn’t jump the gun too early ... I would anticipate him being 100%. He should be able to do every activity he wants to without trouble.” As a surfer himself, and with teenage sons who surf, Dr Wood was acutely aware how much was riding on Mick making a full recovery. “I knew if I screwed up I was in big trouble,” he jokes.

The recovery process, of necessity, has been slow and painstaking. “The first six weeks I wasn’t allowed to do anything. Even just slipping on a stair could have ripped it off again,” says Mick. “After six weeks I was just learning to walk again. After three months I got back in the pool and started walking up and down the pool. When I was swimming I wasn’t allowed to kick and I was slowly getting on the exercise bike and doing rotations.”

He didn’t have his first surf back until November, a total of five months out of the water. How did that first surf back feel?

“It was sort of really weird. I borrowed my mate’s mini-mal and paddled out there and I remember I got up, stood there and went, I remember this,” Mick laughs. “Just cruised along and kicked out really slow. And the next wave I sort of did a slow little cutty. Couldn’t bottom turn, just tiny little cutties. And from then on each day I surfed it just got better and better and better. One day I’d do a little cutty and the next day I’d do a little foam climb sort of thing. The next day I’d go down the line a bit better. Even now there’s something new every day ... Then I got my first proper barrel. I was shitting myself, it was only three foot but I was shitting myself. I was just thinking the lip was going to come down and hit me on the head and my leg’s going to do the splits and I’d be stuffed again .... I was so tense and then, yooo, I’m out. It was classic ... Then I tried to do a little air. It was pretty funny. Each day I do something new it just pumps me up so much. It’s good, just learning to surf again ... But every turn it’s still in the back of your mind. I think that’s to do with me too, I’m still just figuring out what I can and can’t do.” Does he feel like he’ll have to adapt his surfing around it, or will it no longer be an issue by the time the new season starts in March? “Nah, it won’t be an issue. From last week to this week has been a huge improvement already,” says Mick. “Right now I feel like I’m 70 or 80%.”

Mick’s next hurdle was to fly to Hawaii for the ASP surfers’ meeting, to put his case for an injury wildcard, rather than going back to the WQS to re-qualify. “I think the criteria is like, who was closest to qualifying, your results in the past, how bad your injury was and if you could come back from it,” explains Mick. “You sort of never know until you know. It’s pretty gnarly too. You’ve got to get up in front of all the guys on the ‘CT and state your case. You’ve got these 45 different eyes just staring at you, figuring out if you deserve to keep your career or not ... Everyone told me, you’re going to get it. I was just like, if I don’t, there’s something going on,” he says. “Andy (Irons) was going, ‘Oh yeah, it’s just like the Tour de France when someone falls off their bike and you’ve all got to stop and wait for them.’” Mick laughs. “He hasn’t been waiting, I tell ya’.”

But watching Andy collect world title number three, and good mate Parko rise to number two in the world, doesn’t seem to have done Mick’s state of mind any harm. “I think I’m a lot happier,” says Mick. “The first few months my mum was hating me. She just said, you’re the sourest little prick ever. And then just since I’ve been training and eating differently and getting back into surfing, everything just looks so much brighter. I just really appreciate it so much more. Every time I get out of the surf now I’ve got a smile on my face.”

Hawaii also gave him the chance to test out the leg in some serious surf. “Every day I could surf I surfed. Didn’t surf anything big. I just surfed V-land and surfed once out Off The Wall and once out Sunset ... It was good. I actually hit the bottom for the first time out there. It was funny. I had a couple of wipeouts that were pretty gnarly. Any other day before I would have been rattled but I was just so stoked to get smashed. I was like, this is epic. I was coming up pissing myself laughing. It was cool.”

How has his surfing changed?

“I think I’m surfing a lot stronger. When I was in Hawaii, doing a carve or something, my core just felt so strong I felt like I could hold it for a lot longer. And my recovery. I used to get really fatigued ... Now I feel like I can paddle for k’s and k’s and not get tired.”

Since his return, he’s been back on a full-on training regime, and reckons he’s never felt fitter. “It’s gnarly, mate ... They concentrate on your core and get that strong and then start building. ‘Cause I was lopsided as it was, they’re just gradually straightening me up so when I’m walking down the street I don’t look like a surfer ... It’s just evening out the body .. Pretty much keeping good posture through all your movements.”

The experience has also made Mick philosophical about the year ahead, hungry but wiser about the fickle nature of pro surfing success. “It’s going to be hard. Every year when it comes to this stage, every person is thinking exactly the same ... I just try and blow it all away. I know what I want to do and I’m going to do my best and if my best isn’t good enough, it’s not good enough. At least I’m happy in myself. Also, I’ve really evaluated the last couple of years as well, just from watching footage of different events over the years, watching where I was and why I lost.”

What has he learnt?

“I was trying too hard sometimes. Sometimes I wasn’t trying hard enough. My attitude to people in my heat, who I was staying with, where I was staying, all that kind of stuff. There were a lot of things I had to work on which hopefully I’m going to change.” But anyone expecting this new, self-aware Mick to be a push over in competition could be in for a shock. “One big thing is being ruthless. I got told by (shaper) Darren Handley years ago, when I go into negotiate contracts with him, it would be like, we’d look at each other and as we walked in we were friends. As soon as we got inside the door it was business. And there’s no friends in business. And now, as soon as I put on that wet shirt, it’s like, fuck all you guys. You can get fucked. I think that’s where Andy’s got an edge and Kelly .... I notice Parko did it a lot this year. Just watching around the contests, watching the magazines and interviews, he’s really changed his whole perspective .” Mick reckons Parko benefited from his own break from the tour early in the season, to be home for the birth of his first daughter, Evie. “I think having that break was good for him too. People say, what if - I even questioned it myself - what if he went to those two contests, would he be world champion? But then remembering back to when we were in Tahiti, he didn’t want to be there. His mind wasn’t there. Every time he came in he was checking his phone. Anything, if Mon said she had a kick in the stomach or something - ‘Should I come home? Should I come home?’ His mind wasn’t in it. That two contest break was probably as good a break as mine right now. The same with Hog when he did his arm, he got that fire in him.”

As if on cue, Joel calls round to Mick’s place to deliver wedding invitations. He and childhood sweetheart Monica are getting married in March. Right now, they’re off to New York for a few days holiday with baby Evie and then off to Whistler for a week’s snowboarding. Mick’s heading off to a Red Bull speciality event in Fiji onboard a luxury charter boat, with Andy and Bruce Irons. They’re remarkable lives these young blokes are leading, in pursuit of their surfing dreams. In the seven years since SW first shouted them to all-you-can-eat pizza at Kirra Pizza Hut, they’ve gone from local hotrats to wealthy world beaters.

I can barely equate the young, goofy, clowning 16-year-old Mick with the determined young man before me now. Mick’s always been incredibly humble about his successes, with a strong self-depricating streak. But now there seems to be a new, quiet confidence about him, like he’s had time to grow into the idea of being one of the best surfers in the world.

Does he think he can come back, re-scale the heights to mix it with Andy, Parko and Slater, and win that world title?

“I still try not to be a big head but you know what you can do and those guys haven’t got an edge at all,” he declares flatly.