Mitch Coleborn, Second surf back from injury, Australia

Y’mighta seen the article we did on Mitch Coleborn a couple of days ago, about the Sunny Coast kid being back in the water after injury. Mitch had an operation on his knee, y’see, resulting in a stint of confidence-rattling down-time. Here’s a coupla things he had to say about it:

Stab: Mitch Coleborn, back from injury?
Mitch Coleborn: Yeah, I went for my first surf yesterday. I was kinda just putting it off for as long as I could but one of the guys from Volcom called me and told me to stop being such a pussy. The waves were actually really fun yesterday, we went up to Forster and surfed Janey’s in the arvo, it was really, really good. I couldn’t surf properly, but I was just stoked to be back in the water and the waves were pumping, so…

How’d it feel? The knee’s sweet, it’s not sore at all. I’ve got a little bit more range to get in it, and then it’s all just a matter of me finding… I’m still not one with my surfboard. It might take a week or two to get back surfing properly. But yeah, there was no soreness or anything like that and my knee didn’t swell up last night or anything.

Did you surf ok? It’ll take a while. I was just falling off all the time. I was still kinda going for stuff, ’cause we were shooting, but it’s going to take a while for sure. I did heaps of rehab, I was working with Chris Prosser on the Gold Coast, he’s the ASP chiropractor or whatever, he works at a few of the events. But he’s rad, I worked with him heaps on the Goldy then teamed up with my trainer, Wes Berg. I did a lot of leg-strengthening exercises with him for the last two months.

By the looks of this shot, captured by the talented Riley Blakeway during Mitch’s second surf back, the knee ain’t causing as much grief as would be expected. Looks like a throw away, huh? Think again. Mitch was sticking shit like this on the regular before the accident, and it’ll only be a matter of time before his strike-rate ups again.