FROM HELL AND BACK
With Gold Coast pro surfer and shark buster Mick Fanning safely back home, we consider some of the world’s greatest returns to elite level sport after major trauma
IF Mick Fanning returns to professional surfing he will join a select group of sporting legends who have stared down major trauma and competed again at top level.
Footage of the Gold Coast world champion grappling with a great white shark in the final of the J-Bay Open in South Africa on Sunday night our time has become a global sensation.
The three-time world champion was understandably shaken up and said he would not be fazed if he did not compete again in the moments straight after the attack.
He has since said he will get back in the water – even back at J-Bay – but it might take some time to process properly.
If Fanning manages to return for the Tahiti Pro next month he will join the annals of some of the most impressive sporting comebacks.
Here we recall those who defied the odds and serious mental or physical trauma to again perform at elite level.
NIKI LAUDA (FORMULA ONE)
Austrian Formula One driver and champion Niki Lauda was involved in a serious crash at the 1976 German Grand Prix when his Ferrari hit an embankment and burst into flames. He was trapped in the wreckage, inhaling hot toxic fumes and suffering severe burns. Despite standing straight after the crash Lauda later fell into a coma. Lauda suffered extensive scarring from the burns to his head, losing most of his right ear as well as the hair on the right side of his head, eyebrows and eyelids. But the driver returned to race six weeks later and went on to win the 1977 championship.
MONICA SELES (TENNIS)
The multiple-Grand Slam winning Yugoslavian tennis professional Monica Seles is one of the
TOM BOSWELL AND RYAN KEEN greatest players the game has ever seen. She was as famed for her winning exploits as she was for playing two-handed off both sides. Her incredible tenacity was also one of her qualities. She would need all of it to overcome the mental demons of an on-court stabbing. She was the world No.1 in 1993 when she became the target of a deranged fan obsessed with her major rival Steffi Graf. It was at a tournament in Graf’s home nation of Germany when Gunter Parche made his way to the edge of the court during a change-of-ends and stabbed a seated Seles in the back. Seles did not return to competitive tennis for two years but managed to regain her standing as one of the game’s best and won the 1996 Australian Open.
BOB BLAIR (CRICKET)
Few could believe it when the New Zealand cricketer walked out to the crease padded up and ready to bat on Boxing Day, 1953, in Johannesburg. The disbelief of the crowd and the players was shared by Blair’s teammate and the other last remaining batsman Bert Sutcliffe. Two nights earlier on Christmas Eve, Bob Blair’s fiancee Nerissa Love had died in the Tangiwai train disaster back home. She was among 151 who perished after a bridge collapse because of a lahar. Back in those days, such news was not instantaneous and Blair had learned about confirmation of his wife-to-be’s death that morning, the final day of the Test. New Zealand was chasing 271 to win and was on 154 when the ninth wicket fell. Sutcliffe started walking off the field toward the dressingroom thinking it was over before seeing a mourning Blair on the edge of the field, walking out to the middle. Blair, a specialist bowler with little reputation for swinging a bat, belted a six and Sutcliffe struck three of them before their brave stand ended 33 runs later.
JASON MCCARTNEY (AFL)
Jason McCartney almost became one of the 202 killed in the Bali bombings when he suffered burns to 50 per cent of his body in the 2002 incident. Friend Mick Martyn spirited him away from the chaos on the back of a motorcycle first to his hotel room and then hospital. McCartney almost died on the operating table, first of blood poisoning and then a coma he lapsed into for five days. Eight months later he would return to the AFL field, guiding his side North Melbourne to a three-point win over Richmond at Melbourne’s Etihad Stadium in 2003.