John Florence Has Injured His Knee, Again

For the fourth time since 2018, an injury to John’s knee will see him withdraw from competition. 

Currently ranked third in the world, John will not be surfing in the upcoming event at El Salvador and possibly beyond. 

Per his latest IG post:

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A post shared by John john Florence (@john_john_florence)

I learned yesterday that the pain I was feeling in G-Land is due to a torn MCL that happened during the event. Hard news for me to accept, and it means I have to officially withdraw from the next @wsl event in El Salvador, and most likely the Brazil event too. This one really hurts to be honest. But, there will always be unforeseen moments out of our control, just have to try and respond in the best way possible. Thank you for the support and messages the last few days.

John appeared at G Land wearing a ‘space-shuttle sized’ knee brace in his round 1 heat. 

In his post-heat interview, he gave the following statement about his knee:

“Unfortunately yesterday morning I kind of tweaked my left knee, maybe my MCL. It’s been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for me. I was thinking about pulling out of the event then did some work with the medical staff then had a surf this morning and felt okay so decided to keep at it. I was so nervous before that heat because I still didn’t really know what it was going to feel like but it ended up feeling fine and having no pain so I’m really stoked to get the heat win.”

Since then, the knee pain reared its ugly lil head again.

This is now the fourth season in a row that John will be forced to withdraw to competition owing to a knee injury. Oddly, all his knee injuries have occurred mid-season. John is yet to have a season since 2018, where he has missed less than four events. 

This year surfers will be scored on the best nine out of ten results, which means even if his knee was healed in time for Finals day at Lowers, it is unlikely he would make the top five given he will be taking last place in El Salvador and most likely Rio. 

Gutted for John, wishing him a speedy recovery.