MICK FANNING RIDING HIS LAST WAVES
SURF CHAMP CONSIDERS IMMEDIATE RETIREMENT
TRIPLE world champion Mick Fanning has revealed he is considering immediate retirement should he win a fourth world crown next month.
Fanning missed out on nabbing the 2015 title early when he failed to advance out of the third round of the Rip Curl Pro in Portugal last week.
Quizzed on his plans for the future after a year where he survived a shark attack in the final of the J-Bay Open and could end with a world crown, Fanning, 34, admitted he was in uncharted waters.
“I don’t know,” he admitted to News Corp this week.
“The thought (of not surfing on the tour in 2016) has come into my head. I can’t tell you. I just know when it is right. It changes day to day.”
Fanning has shown extraordinary mental strength to not just get back into the water within days of the horrifying attack which went live to air, but to then regain the world No.1 ranking two months later.
“I haven’t got a scratch on me. It’s more of a mental and emotional trauma,” he said a day after punching the shark in his fight for life.
The attack captured worldwide headlines and added to Fanning’s workload – and celebrity – out of the water.
This week he became the first man to make the cover of Elle Australia.
But his focus has remained on healing the scars from the attack and surfing off with another world crown.
Fanning earlier this month said he had worked overtime to move on from the attack – ‘you can’t let yourself dwell in the past’ – but it was something he would never forget.
He has also admitted that he will forever be just that little bit cautious when entering the water.
If Fanning secures his fourth world title at the spiritual home of surfing at Pipeline in Hawaii in December he will match Australian Mark Richard’s feat of four world crowns. Only the great Kelly Slater, with 11 world titles, has won more.
“I’m excited,” Fanning said of the Billabong Pipe Masters where Julian Wilson, the man who frantically paddled to Fanning’s aid during the shark attack, is defending champ. “I ’m ready,” Fanning
said.