Inductee - Mick Fanning

Mick Fanning Surfing

Mick Fanning

Surfing

Mick Fanning put the finishing touches to his remarkable Championship Tour career at the 2018 Rip Curl Pro 17 years after winning the event as a wildcard. In the process, he cemented his legacy as one of Australia's greatest surfing heroes.

Mick emerged from a deep pool of talent based out of Coolangatta as one of The Coolangatta Kids band of brothers alongside fellow legends in waiting, Dean Morrison and Joel Parkinson, to earn his 2001 wildcard entry into the Bells event as a star Rip Curl team rider.

He qualified for the Tour that same year and spent the better part of the next two decades as one of the biggest gravitational forces in the sport, racking up 22 Tour wins, 11 Top 5 finishes and three World Titles in 2007, 2009 and 2013.

In 2018, Mick announced his retirement from full-time competition at Bells to bookend his journey.

And while his stats point to a storied career, his global allure came from things that don't show on the scoreboard.

His razor sharp brand of high-speed surfing became the benchmark for an electric brand of speed, power and flow that earned him the nickname White Lightning although Mick’s personal journey to the top was anything but smooth.

In 1998, when he was already one of Australia's hot up-and-coming amateur prospects, his older brother Sean, his best friend and hero, was killed in a car accident.

In 2004, he tore his entire hamstring muscle off his pelvic bone, ripping the ligaments that attached to his buttocks.

And in 2015, a great white shark famously attacked Mick, biting his leg rope in half during the Final of the J-Bay Open in South Africa, which was being aired on live television back home.

The other finalist, Australia's Julian Wilson, heroically paddled into the danger zone to help his good mate.

Later that year, in the middle of another World Title race at Pipeline, Mick's brother Peter passed away, but through every horrible episode he rebounded with bravery, grace and conviction.

And he had no trouble swapping the green room for the boardroom when in 2016 Mick and mates Parkinson, Bede Durbidge and Josh Kerr established the Balter Brewing Company, which was acquired by Carlton and United Breweries just three years later.

In 2017 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to surfing as a professional competitor at the national and international level, and as a supporter of a range of charitable foundations.

In August 2020 Mick and his fiancé, Bree, welcomed their first child, a baby boy named Xander and in May 2021 Mick was inducted into the Australian Surfing Hall of Fame.

Inductees