Every athlete deals with an injury that’ll send them to the sidelines from time to time. It’s just a fact of life.
France’s Tristan Guilbaud knows this all too well right now, navigating one that couldn’t have come at a less convenient time. Guilbaud’s European QS rankings qualified him for this year’s Challenger Series tour. Great news! But an ankle injury in March set him up for a less than fun start to the campaign. Bad news. After working with physical therapists and rehabbing his injury, Guilbad made it out to Snapper in May to see if he’d be ready for the Tour’s first event. No dice. More bad news.
It’s fair to assume Guilbaud would have preferred to be ready to rock for the CS’s first two events in Australia, but after sitting those out he was able to get a decent consolation prize for his “unofficial” return from that injury: a trip to the Mentawais. His first waves back in the water he realized he couldn’t do any turns on his front side, leaving him with nothing to do but slide into some bottom turns, stall, and enjoy getting barreled over and over.
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“I was really, really happy to be back in the water,” he tells The Inertia. “I didn’t really surf as much as I wanted to, at least in the Mentawais. But at least I could surf and have fun and enjoy it with my friends.”
Sounding refreshed from his trip, Guilbaud tells The Inertia he’s feeling better and more prepared to compete now. He’s made the trek to South Africa for the CS’s Ballito Pro and as of this time he’s advanced through the opening round and into the Round of 48.
Injuries suck. Forced downtime with no waves can suck. But coming back to a handful of barrels in the Mentawais sure can soften the blow.
