When Mick Fanning announced he’d be leaving the tour, it was a sad day for fans of competitive surfing. Fanning’s steadily-burning fire in the jersey came to be something that felt… familiar. He could be counted on to put on a show. He could be counted on to always be a man who could shift the contest narrative. But for Fanning, somewhere along the way, he lost that drive. Not the talent, mind you—just the drive.
It’s been a long road to the top for both Fanning and long-time friend, Joel Parkinson. Both grew up as, as one commenter put it “Cooly street rats.” Both worked their way through the rankings. Both shocked the world with their talent, and both are world champions. “From childhood mates to the modern giants of Australian surfing,” wrote the makers of the video you see above, Surfing World, “from Cooly ratbags to world champions, their friendship has evolved, deepened, been occasionally tested along the way, to the point now where they’re like an old married couple finishing each other’s sentences.”
See more on Surfingworld.com.au.
