CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
WILSON DEFIES INJURY TO WIN QUIKY
IT was a day for miracles.
The miracle that is Kirra. The miracle of a teenage rookie snaring a perfect 10. The miracle of an all-round nice guy with a newborn baby winning the whole damn thing.
Then there was the greatest miracle of all – that the allround nice guy claimed the title despite carrying a shoulder injury so painful he couldn’t lift his right arm as he was chaired up the beach.
“I just had to lift my left hand instead,” Julian Wilson smiled of the moment he’s dreamed of since he was a grommet growing up on the Sunshine Coast – being celebrated as the Quiksilver Pro champion.
“I can feel the fatigue (in my shoulder) now. It’s not amazing. Towards the end of the final I lost a lot of power in it and had a couple of wipeouts just trying to take off on a couple of waves … I had to let my board go rather than duck-dive the whitewash.
“My body was just burnt out.”
But still he found a way, somehow navigating his busted body through three heats in a day of pulsating waves at Kirra, the last a ding-dong final with his mentor-in-parenthood – fellow Aussie and father-of-two Adrian “Ace” Buchan.
“Ace has been amazing to me and I couldn’t believe we were out in the water together,” Wilson said. “(Of all my competitors), I’ve spoken to him the most over the last four months.”
Wilson injured the AC joint in his right shoulder six weeks ago when he went from mountain bike instructor to mountain bike disaster in the blink of an eye.
“I was taking a few friends who were new to mountain biking out (on the trails),” the 29-year-old said.
“I was talking them through every section of the trail and then my foot slipped off the pedal and I went over the handlebars … it was just a freak thing.”
That “freak thing” meant Wilson had to dig as deep as he ever has this week, never more so than when he woke yesterday to be told the whole shebang was moving to Kirra for the first time since 2013.
Snapper Rocks may officially host the World Surf League tour’s first stop each year but there’ll always be a place for the former playground of MP and Rabbit when the surf god Huey calls on her.
Yesterday was one of those magic days.
With an ex-cyclone called Linda whipping up huge waves, it was off to Kirra we went – the judges tower, the television cameras, the thousands of surf fans, the Brazilians playing Don’t Let the Soccer Ball Hit the Ground.
A barrel fest was set to unfold and unfold it did, never more so than when 19-year-old American Griffin Colapinto rode what he later proclaimed the greatest wave of his life – a triple-barrel that every professional and amateur judge on the beach awarded a 10.
Kirra was firing – but that
wasn’t initially welcome news for a fella spending more time with his physiotherapist than his newborn daughter.
“This morning I got really nervous,” Wilson said. “It was going to be a real test for me, some waves of consequence, and I wasn’t sure how my shoulder was going to pull up.”
But then – as he has done day after day – Wilson turned his mind to what he witnessed the woman he loves do only two weeks ago.
“Honestly, watching the birth of my first child gave me unbelievable strength to just suck it up, come down here and do what I needed to do,” he said with a sense of awe familiar of all first-time fathers.
“I got incredible strength from the whole experience. Once little Olivia was born it was like ‘All right, Dad’s got to go back to work’ … it’s a bit hard to whinge about a sore shoulder after watching your wife go through that.
I GOT INCREDIBLE STRENGTH FROM THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE
JULIAN WILSON
“Women are amazing.” Late yesterday, one of surfing’s greatest paid Wilson the ultimate tribute.
“It’s been an extraordinary comeback,” said two-time world champion Tom Carroll, a man who knows all about surfing in pain.
“It’s amazing how he pulled out of that space of being completely hopeless and started seeing the light and was able to compete.
“I don’t know how to explain
it but sometimes an injury can really focus us. It strips away all the shit. It separates what’s real and what’s not.
“When I saw Julian coming through (his heats), I thought if he can keep going with that injury and cope with the excruciating pain, it’ll focus him. It’s a paradox and it’s lovely.”
Carroll then recalled the 2015 day when Wilson didn’t hesitate to paddle to Mick Fanning’s aid after his famous shark encounter, seeing it as further evidence he’s got that something special. “I know Julian has that (inner) strength,” he said. “He’s got that natural urge to be strong, deep down.
“You saw that when he backed Mick up when the shark hit him. There was no hesitation. When you’ve got that inside you, you can tap into it and Julian has done that again.”