Introducing your 2013-2014 World Champion. Photo: The Surf Channel | Emily Bates
It’s not every day you have the chance to ask a few questions to a world champion. To a triple world champion? Even less. The idea of being able to ask a few questions to Mister Mick Fanning himself was very exciting and it was even more so when I received his answers. So take a look a the 2013 ASP World Champion’s words about his victory, fitness training, the controversial score against Yadin Nicol and his adventures with Taylor Steele for their new movie, “Missing.”
This interview was originally published on OuiSurf.ca
First of all, congratulations on the title. This is a massive achievement and even more so since it is your third one. Has the adrenaline come down yet or are you still on cloud nine?
Thanks so much! Yeah, the buzz is there but it’s certainly worn off a little. I just have this great sense of achievement and that feels great. I feel content.
You are in such good shape and you’re very involved in fitness training. Do you think a good fitness program will drastically improve the average surfer’s time in the water?
Look, training isn’t for everyone and I don’t know what might work for other people. For me though, I like being in shape. I like being able to eliminate my doubts by trusting that my body and mind are up to the challenge. If I do lose a heat, I don’t like wondering whether I could have done more to get the result I wanted. That’s why I train. Other people are motivated in different ways.
In Round 5 of the Billabong Pipe Masters against CJ Hobgood, you went for seven waves and took a pounding on five of them. Are you so confident in your physical abilities that you can afford to go through a heat like this one, even if you know there might be decisive a quarterfinal after it? Is it where all the workouts pay off?
I’d been training quite a bit in the lead up to the title showdown. It was probably the fittest I’d been all year. That helped big time. When I was getting thrashed, I never came up gasping or out of breath…I knew I had the energy to keep going. And I needed it in both those heats…’cause I really was getting pounded.
In your last two winning heats against CJ Hobgood and Yadin Nicol, the same kind of pattern happened where you got a bomb wave at the very end of the heat, keeping everyone on the edge of their seat. Do you function better under a lot of pressure?
I do like performing under pressure, but what I had to go through in both those heats was pretty insane. Now that I look back on it, I’m glad it went down the way it did, but at the time it was damn stressful. I guess I was lucky to get the opportunity to chase down the scores, but you still have to ride those waves well.
Does surfing keep you young? Why do you think surfing seems to be one of the only sports where professionals aren’t considered old and ready to retire at 30?
Well, you take some beatings in surfing, but it’s not like NFL or Rugby League here in Australia where you spend 20 odd years of your life getting smashed in tackles that are like car accidents. You can have some horrific wipeouts and major injuries in surfing, but I don’t think it’s as taxing on the body as those contact sports. So yeah, you can stick at it a little longer. The other thing is experience. Experience in navigating different situations in heats, dealing with pressure, figuring out different surf breaks. It’s all information you can call on when surfing against a younger guy.
Tell me about your last wave against Yadin Nicol. The scoring made a lot of noise, people were arguing back and forth about it, etc. After working so hard to get where you are now, how do you manage the questioning about whether you deserved the score or not?
Well, obviously I thought it was the score. It was a clutch moment for me, and I thought I surfed the wave as well as I could and the judges obviously felt that way too. It was a close heat, no question, and those ones always spark some debate, especially with Yadin’s WCT career and Kelly’s title chances on the line. There are Yadin and Kelly fans that were hoping and thinking it wasn’t the score and, on the other side, there were people supporting me that never questioned it. My job isn’t to write down scores…my job is to surf the wave the best I can, and I thought I did pretty well.
What do you think of Rob Machado’s idea of doing a “Best of Three” between you and Slater this year? Here’s an excerpt of what he said on The Inertia: “It’s safe to say that it’s between Kelly and Mick this year, right? Nobody else is even in the hunt, so I would approach it like REEF does the Clash of the Legends. I would go to Kelly and Mick and I’d say, ‘OK, you guys are going to surf off. You’re going to have three heats throughout the course of the event, and they’re just going to be World Title heats; it’s just going to be the best of three. We don’t know exactly when. We’ll wait for optimum conditions. And we’re going to have you surf three times.’” When the conditions are good, the trades are good, they go.
I love reading and hearing about all ideas in regard to formats. To be involved in something like that would be amazing.
You have said in an interview before that you really wanted to work with Taylor Steele. Why? How is it to work with him?
Over the years, Taylor and I have become good mates and to get to do a project with him was unreal. I learned a lot during the filming and traveling with Taylor and his crew. They really absorb the cultures of the places they visit and stay super positive no matter what situations they get themselves into. It was a lot of fun.
When you decided to leave on a trip with him to go on an adventure, without knowing the destination, I can guess it was a complete different way to travel and surf from what you normally do on the ASP. Did it allow you to find the free surfing spirit again? Is it something you miss sometimes when you’re on the tour?
It was definitely a different way to travel. Some of the destinations we visited I wouldn’t usually consider because there’s no waves. Surfing on that trip was relaxing and it turned out to be just the break I need from the tour to let go of some pressure and get some perspective. Comps aren’t everything.
Can you tell us about the best moment of that trip for you?
There were a couple of amazing moments, but for me, I think the highlight was hanging with the gorillas in Africa. I was completely in awe of them. They’re so big and strong and they could pull your arms off if they wanted, but it seemed they were just as intrigued by me as I was by them. It was cool.
If you had three pieces of advice for all the surfers out there looking up to you, who want to improve their surfing, what would it be?
One, surf every day. Two, watch what John John Florence does. Three, take part in protecting the ocean environment.
