Covid, sharks ...

Two-time world champion Tyler Wright is having a coughing fit due to a standard lung infection. However, the rattling cough needs an explanation during the year of pandemic paranoia.

Hours earlier the sick Australian surfermade history to become the first woman to win a major title event at Pipeline at Oahu in Hawaii. The Maui Pro was Wright’s first event in two years after she contracted influenza in Africa. This was followed by chronic fatigue and ensuing emotional breakdowns.

Yet the triumphant comeback last week almost never took place.

On December 9 a fatal shark attack involving a recreational surfer near the Maui Pro site at Honolulu Bay shut down the women’s event. Three days later a Covid outbreak among World Surf League organisers, including chief executive Erik Logan, brought the men’s competition to a standstill. The ensuing chaos was dragging the sport down into awide-eyed, open panic, and Hawaiian government officials were reluctant to sanction the resumption of the trouble-plagued events.

The stasis ended on December 17. Officials allowed the men’s and women’s events to resume, with Wright and her fellow surfers joining the men at Pipeline break for the first time.

The sport of surfing was morphing into guerilla warfare; competitors and organisers hiding out for extended periods in lockdown, self-contained small groups living in isolation, waiting for hit-and-run raids on the beach and always moving here and there trying to outrun the pandemic. It’s the only way the revamped competition will survive the upcoming trek through Hawaii, California, Australia, Brazil, South Africa and French Polynesia.

How did Wright keep herself together? She replies with the mantra that is often repeated: ‘‘This ismy job.’’

For Wright, this approach is driving her comeback. It’s just a job, albeit a great one. But just a job.

‘‘At her worst, Wright was having up to six emotional breakdowns a day.’’

For an agonising 14 months, Wrightwas barely able to get out of bed and admits she has no recollection of her 25th birthday. At her worst, the surfer told 60 Minutes, she was having up to six emotional breakdowns a day.

She won her first tour event at the age of 14 in 2008 and won two world titles in 2016 and 2017, but she had been brought so low.

Wright says the fatal shark attack at Honolulu Bay near the