They travel to their contest but don’t know when it will start.
asserted
it → travel → contest
The uncertainty about waves and conditions means the next heat could be tomorrow morning, the next afternoon, or a week away.
uncertain
heat → mean → waves
All competitors and their entourages are crammed together into a hothouse of waiting.
asserted
competitors → cram → waiting
Then, the heat itself is an excruciating tick-ticking half-hour of more unknowns.
asserted
heat → tick → unknowns
Will a wave come?
asserted
wave → come → ?
What’s the rival doing, what’s the scoreboard saying?
asserted
scoreboard → do → what
Piled on top of that stress are the vagaries of subjective judging and the microscopic margins between success and the scrapheap.
asserted
vagaries → pile → success
The tension of this high-stakes competition is inimical to why anyone would surf in the first place.
asserted
anyone → surf → place
You have the dream job, but you wish you were with those others over there, down the beach, just surfing.
asserted
you → have → beach
And if that isn’t enough, along comes the great white shark.
asserted
shark → come → ?
World champions from Kelly Slater and John John Florence to Stephanie Gilmore and Carissa Moore and the Brazilians Gabriel Medina and Filipe Toledo have quit the sport to escape the stress.
asserted
champions → quit → stress
Some come back, unable to resist their competitive urges; others go into the lucrative world of paid magazine shoots in remote locations; most just chuck it in, go home and surf again.
asserted
most → come → it
Not compete, not deal with the nerve-shredding tension, just to reconnect with something they’re meant to love.
asserted
they → compete → something
Mick Fanning kept a lid on this tug-of-war during his 15-year career as a three-time world champion.
asserted
Fanning → keep → champion
He grew up knowing working-class adversity.
asserted
He → grow → adversity
His father, an earthmover, left his mother, a nurse, to raise five children of whom Mick was the youngest.
asserted
Mick → leave → whom
Mick’s brother and closest friend, Sean, died in a car accident at 20.
asserted
brother → die → 20
Mick grew up between contradictory emotions: the joy of being so good at surfing that he could honour the life Sean didn’t get, and the inner knowledge that much of the professional life left him anxious and depressed.
uncertain
much → grow → him
He couldn’t admit that, though.
asserted
He → admit → that
He had friends and dependants to represent.
asserted
He → have → friends
He owed it to everyone to be happy to be living their dream.
asserted
He → owe → dream
Success came when he managed to quarantine the obsessive, process-driven professional “Mick” from the off-the-clock alter ego, the drunken liar “Eugene”.
asserted
he → come → ego
But with the world titles came more loss.
asserted
loss → come → titles
One of his closest surfing friends, Hawaiian world champion Andy Irons, died at 32.
asserted
One → die → 32
Mick’s eldest brother Peter died at 43.
asserted
brother → die → 43
His last brother, Ed, would die at 48.
asserted
brother → die → 48
In 2015, Mick’s first marriage was failing.
asserted
marriage → fail → 2015
Then he paddled out for the final at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.
asserted
he → paddle → Africa
Live on television, a great white shark came at Fanning.
asserted
shark → come → Fanning
It is still chilling to remember the horror of that moment, when you saw the fin, the splash, and for eight seconds the surfer disappearing behind a wave.
asserted
you → remember → wave
Fanning thrashed around and the shark swam away.
asserted
shark → thrash → ?
The incident turned Fanning from a surfer into a global celebrity.
asserted
incident → turn → celebrity
He hated the attention and, to his credit, in this book he deals with the event in a way that doesn’t define his story.
asserted
that → hat → story
He pays most credit to Julian Wilson, his competitor, who paddled towards him.
asserted
who → pay → him
He downplays the punch he threw at the shark.
asserted
he → downplay → shark
His marriage collapsed, he came back to the J-Bay Open and won, but he finally admitted that he didn’t enjoy competitive surfing enough to keep slogging away.
asserted
he → collapse → surfing
Fanning is not the only sportsperson to say their favourite book is Andre Agassi’s confessional Open, the most celebrated line of which is “I hate tennis”.
asserted
I → say → tennis
Fanning’s book has a kinship with Agassi’s in playing out this ambivalence about the thing that rewards you with trophies and wealth.
asserted
that → have → trophies
He definitely doesn’t want to whinge, but he can’t keep bottling it up either.
asserted
he → want → it
A singular Australian personality, tough and brave but also bearing his raw emotional scars honestly, Fanning contributes far beyond his own story.
asserted
Fanning → bear → story
…and 8 more, not listed.
The Aporia
