Sally Fitzgibbons
'It was a special feeling when someone sent through a pic of the three of us - Ash Barty, Hannah Green and myself - just that realisation that we’d all had cracker nights and everyone was frothin’ on the Aussie women.' The world's new number one surfer, Sally Fitzgibbons, on a magical night in Australian sport.
Life on the world surfing circuit is riddled with pitfalls. It’s part of the reason Sally Fitzgibbons treasures a message she received from Sunny Garcia.
Sally Fitzgibbons spent ten years listening intently to Mick Fanning. This is what she learned.
'You feel emotionally and physically exhausted. You kind of grieve over the moment a little bit.'
I love my second places. I look at the three of them and think, ‘Man, I was so close to being the champion of the world and I missed out.’ It was brilliant just to get there. But it was demoralising, too. If I could chat to my 19-year-old self, it would …
I needed a good cry. It was all going wrong. I had told myself at the start of 2016 that I would break free of everything I’d done before – everything that was safe and comfortable and natural to me – and try to dominate. You know those Kelly Slater performances where he goes …