Remember that time Andrew Cotton broke his back at maxing Nazaré? If you’ve seen the footage, it’s hard to forget. He bounced like a basketball on a trampoline. Here, have a look:
Well, Cotty is well and truly back in the game. Last year, he made his triumphant return, but the road is still a bumpy one. He started a vlog called Bounce Back (fitting, no?) to document it all, and in this installment, after heading to Ireland for a quick strike mission, Cotton returns to Nazaré for the swell everyone’s been talking about. Unfortunately, he messed himself up again. Thankfully, not as badly as before. “It was amazing, but I did get a bit of whiplash which set me back,” he said. “Returning back to Portugal, I pretty much couldn’t move my neck. It was very disappointing because I would miss probably one of the first proper big swells of the year.”
That swell, of course, was the one in which Justine Dupont caught what may well turn out to be a new world record.
Cotton hit the rehab hard, and within a few days, felt healthy enough to surf. Thankfully, another massive swell was forecasted to arrive. And when it did, everyone scored.
