Mick Fanning Confirms He Will Return To The J-Bay Open This Year

Mick Fanning recently appeared on Australian talk show The Project, to promote the involvement of his brewery (Balter) in The Great Australian Beer SpecTAPular, a craft beer festival that visits Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland. Topics covered ranged from his trip to Alaska (“It was such a magical place, surfing in front of snow capped mountains…”) to his involvement in Balter (“The craft beer world, everyone is just so inclusive, it’s a really tight knit community, we’ve got a great team at the brewery, so it’s been really fun,”) and more. But unfortunately, it’s now an inescapable, lifelong reality for Mick that he will be asked, by everyone, everywhere, about the shark attack he experienced in South Africa in 2015 – which is just where conversation inevitably landed.

“It was definitely terrifying in the moment, I had my heart in my mouth and I felt like I could run on water,” recalled Mick.
“I look at it as, it did happen, but I don’t want to be stifled by it, I want to keep moving forward. Obviously now when I go surfing, if I don’t feel comfortable, if I feel something in my gut, I’ll come in. I’ll joke about it with friends, but there are people who are affected by it, who weren’t as lucky as I am, so I want to make sure I don’t make too much fun of it, because I got really lucky.”

And then, to the surprise of the panel, Mick confirmed something that’s been talked about, but until now remained a little hazy: “At the moment I’ve got (J-Bay) penciled in. I’ll go and compete. I’m gonna go to Fiji at the start of next month, and then go onto J-Bay. It’s just a place that, I’ve had so many amazing memories there, I just feel like it’s a place that I want to right the wrongs.”

Go watch the whole interview here.