Mick Fanning on His Longevity Goals, Surfing’s Wave of Youth and the New World Champions

If you’ve been around a certain Southern Californian a-frame in the past six weeks, you may have seen a certain three-time world champion surfing over the Lower Trestles cobblestones at absurdly high speeds. 

“It’s the only place to surf,” chuckles Mick Fanning. Yes, White Lighting has spent a good part of the summer in the States to visit his wife’s family. He’ll say his carves aren’t up to par, but that’s just Mick’s modesty (watch the clips for yourself here). 

Mick officially retired from competitive surfing years ago, but he still keeps a busy (and fun) schedule. His annual charity golf tournament to help victims of floods raised $700,000 this year, pushing the four-year tally past $2.6 million. He brought his Bells Beach trophy to a New York City pub.

But he’s also a father of two and is balancing all the responsibilities that come with being a family man. His dedication to being active with his kids, combined with his retention of high-level, on-rail surfing, helps explain why, at age 44, he’s become an ambassador for AG1, a multivitamin drink endorsed by athletes and scientists like F1 star Lewis Hamilton, Olympic track and field medalist Allyson Felix, and Stanford University neuroscientist/podcast mogul Andrew Huberman.  

I caught up with Mick a few days after he threw out the first pitch at a San Diego Padres game to discuss all this and more in a wide-ranging conversation. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

SURFER: You’ve surfed a lot with Molly Picklum and Yago Dora, both on the tour and off. What stood out to you about their performance during the WSL Finals day at Cloudbreak?

Mick Fanning: I thought Yago came out and he put on a performance, which warranted his yellow jersey. I’ve seen him surf many, many times and he’s an amazing surfer, but I felt like he stepped it up a gear, which was really cool. And Griffin put on a great performance too. I felt like he was really strong. But it goes to show that having that yellow jersey and coming in fresh in that last leg really helps. 

And on the women’s side, I’m so stoked for Molly. After (she lost to Caroline Marks in the first title match heat), I was like, oh no, is this going to curse her? But she just came back, put her head down and just went absolutely nuts. And she’s a great girl. She gives it everything. The way that she came back, just a really dominant performance and I’m so stoked for her.

Related: Molly Picklum, Yago Dora Win First World Titles in Historic Cloudbreak Surf

I believe you’ve spent some time with Molly, as she’s a Rip Curl athlete and did lots of contests around Australia as a kid. How does it feel to see her go from a grom to world champion?

I’ve known Molly since she was little. And I’ve seen her evolve over the years. But I think the biggest thing for Molly is just her willingness to learn. She’s always probing and never too proud to say, No, I’ve got this. She’s always open if someone’s got an idea. And then to surf with her, obviously, she rips in the small stuff. But I had some time with her during covid where I got to take her out on ski and get her on solid waves at Kirra and other stuff where she might’ve felt uncomfortable. She pulled into some big barrels. And she was so excited about it. From that moment on, I knew that she was going to be someone special. What she’s done at Pipeline and Teahupo’o, she’s redefined what women’s surfing is.

Another grom you’ve known for a while is Dane Henry, who went ballistic in Rip Curl’s Dunno video. Why is this guy not on more people’s radar?

I know a lot of the kids in the film, and Dane’s probably the standout. I’ve known him since he was a micro-grom and he’s, special man. Sort of similar to Molly in that he’s always willing to learn. He’s trained so hard over the years.

It’s funny, when he was a real little grom he asked me if I could get him sponsored by Rip Curl. I told him the sponsors will come, you just keep surfing and doing your thing and they’ll come. Sure enough, look at where he is now. And I think that’s something all groms should do. Just do the surfing and work hard. Because sponsors don’t make you any better. Yeah, it makes you look cool. But that fight in him has carried on because he’s had nothing handed to him. He’s lighting the world up and I’m really stoked to see it. 

Related: Who’s the Next Big Surf Star? Rip Curl’s ‘Dunno’ May Have Answers

Last thing on the youth. You and Kelly Slater participated in Kolohe Andino’s Steko Classic event in San Clemente recently. What brought you out there, and what was that like?

It was fun. It was really all Kolohe. I saw him in the water one day, and he messaged me later asking me if I had time to come down. It was cool to see all these kids around here, and they put a different concept on it where they all had to ride big boards. It’s cool to see people giving back to the young kids. They were just pumped. I guess Kelly was in town, too. They had donuts down there, coffee, and they had them do crazy crap before their heats. With my team, I actually didn’t even need to paddle out. They already smashed the opponents and I just went out there and probably got the lowest score of the whole team. So it was cool. It was fun just to see how passionate the young kids were about it. 

You’ve always been one to prioritize your health, optimize your performance, and be as prepared as you can to surf. But did starting a family shift your mindset in terms of your health and longevity?

It’s one of those things where I’ve always tried to look after myself. But now I’ve got to provide and I’ve got to make sure that I’ve got enough energy throughout the day to keep up with my kids. There were hard times where you sort of let that go and then my little fella would just look at me and go, “You’re fat, Dad.”

But I still want to be able to go and surf pain-free and do the things that I want to do. And I want to be able to run around with my kids for as long as possible. Once I get older, I don’t want to be trying to get myself back into shape if they start surfing or something like that. I know it’s going to be something active. I just want to be able to be there and make sure that I’m fit enough to run around with ’em and wear them out. 

How’d you get on the AG1 program? You’ve just signed a deal with them, but have already been using it for the past three years. 

I’ve always liked to start the day with something healthy. I was just catching up with a friend of mine who used to be my sports psychologist, Michael Gervais. He told me to try it, so I gave it a go. It tasted nice and I felt the benefits of it. So I just kept taking it. And since I’ve been taking it regularly, I very rarely get sick. It’s just a good ritual every morning for me to have a glass of water and then just have the AG1 before anything else goes in the body. 

It’s just simple and easy. I think that’s probably a good thing for me. I just subscribed and it showed up every month. I think the world has sort of shifted into making sure people look after themselves a lot more. I think there’s a lot more information out there about all the different supplements and all that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to do what’s right for you. This is something that works for me. And as I said, I feel like I don’t get sick and that’s a great way to be, especially when you’re chasing kids. 

You have a reputation for keeping your life organized and structured, both in your surfing and your business deals. Have you always been that way, or have you had to work on that?

I think it was a lot of trial and error growing up. I guess being the youngest of five kids, I would always have to be ready in case one of my brothers ran off for a surf and I wanted to be with ’em. They wouldn’t wait for me. So I suppose being prepared stemmed from that. As I got on the world tour, it’s so “stop-start.” You never know if it’s going to be on or not. I learned that the CT stop-start thing was messing with me. So I had to ask, what can I do to try and break that cycle and be ready? That included having a game day bag and having the boards ready to go. Anything to prevent scrambling, that’s all it was. 

You were also known for being meticulous with your surfboards in your tour days. How involved are you with Darren Handley and new boards nowadays?

That’s always been something I’ve enjoyed since I was a kid. When I first got sponsored by DH, he was like, just come in and clean up the factory. And I went in there, and it was always clean. So I went into his shaping bay and I annoyed the shit out of him by asking a million questions. 

These days, I’m the R&D guy for the team. If there’s something new that DH wants to try, then he gives it to me and I give him the feedback that he needs. The good, bad, whatever. I try to give it to him straight. And we sort of know how each surfer on the team works, so we can sort of slowly apply that to each different athlete. But yeah, I love him, I was just about to ring him now and annoy the shit out of him again. 

Sometimes people say, You’re off tour, so you don’t have to ride a high-performance board. But I still like to. It’s weird. I enjoy that feeling under my feet and trying to push it into new areas. It’s been good. 

Do you ever get restless at home and have a burning desire to put a jersey back on? 

No, not one bit. I did a few wildcards during covid. I did Narrabeen, which was just to help Rip Curl out. And then Bells was like, alright, I’ll go and do Bells because I had a poor performance at Narrabeen. But I’d paddle out and then start questioning, what the hell am I doing here? And so that’s why I don’t really do events anymore. But I love watching them. I love the buildup and I love when I’m helping someone. I love the performance aspect of all that. But for me personally, yeah, I’m good. I don’t need to go into another event.

Grant “Twiggy” Baker recently joined the team at Rip Curl. Seeing as he showed you The Snake and how successful that campaign was, is there a plan in place for you guys to explore more waves in Africa together?

Twiggy and I never stopped talking. I think The Snake was sort of the tip of the iceberg. It’s a really fickle wave, and so we were lucky that we got it as good as we did. I know Twiggy’s got so many different spots under his hat, and I think that’s sort of how the deal came about. We’re always talking and finally, I’m like, why don’t we just put him on the team? But then on top of that, he’s a psychopath when it comes to big waves. What he does at the Eddie and stuff like that is incredible. I think he’s an incredible asset for Rip Curl. I was hoping it would happen sooner, to be honest. 

When we did that trip, I didn’t know where the hell I was going. He didn’t tell me until five days out, and I was trying to Google it. And I still couldn’t really find out. But we’ve been talking over the years about different waves. He knows what I’m after. He’ll be throwing things out, like we’ve got this wave, we’ve got that wave. We’ve had some trips in the frying pan just sizzling away, but unfortunately, times and swells haven’t matched up. But yeah, something will come soon. 

Speaking of Search trips, Red Monkey Full Moon has to be one of the best you and Rip Curl have done. How did that come together?

Cheers. That was a funny one. The backstory was we were at Bells and it was flat. We were there for the event to do some work. And then I saw this swell going to Indo and I knew we had to jump on it. We told the bosses and we’re out of there. Me and Mason flew to Bali and we were wondering where to go. We ended up in G-Land and it was one of those next-level days. I didn’t even step foot on land; we just boated in from Bali and went back. I was just tripping out, it was so good. When we got back, we were celebrating that trip, but Mason said the swell would be perfect for Desert Point. So we went there. To have one week at those two locations was pretty amazing. 

Any status update on the Palm Valley Gold Coast wave pool that you’re a partner in?

I’m a kind of ambassador/advisor. I don’t know if I have a permanent title. But we’ve been working on it since 2020. I was in the background the whole time, but I just didn’t want to be named until we got the (disbursement authorization) approved. Everything’s looking really good to start the capital raise. I feel like we’ve seen so many people announce they’re doing a pool and then six months later, it all falls over. So we want to be really diligent in making sure that we’re going to produce what we say we’re going to produce. Hopefully, we start breaking ground early next year, if not before. Hopefully only takes a couple of years to get going and everyone will be able to come to the Goldie and surf the point breaks and then come up to the pool and have a good time when the swell’s flat. 

Related: The Wave Pool That Inspired Mick Fanning’s Latest Business Venture

This one’s going to be cool. The location is amazing. You can land in Coolangatta Airport or Brisbane Airport and be there within 40-45 minutes. It doesn’t matter which airport you’re at. And then once you’re at the pool, you can do a session and then you can jump in a car and you can be in the seaway to go to Straddie within nine minutes. I also think that the training aspect for young guys and girls will be huge. They can take advantage of practicing in the pool and apply it to the ocean. So it’s going to be awesome for all that high-performance level. But then the wave itself is really easy to use. It has variety as well, so people will be able to pick what they want to do.

Great, so Dane Henry will have even more attempts to land psycho airs. 

Yeah! It’s funny because I was just talking to Dane because he was in Munich, and we’re using the same tech from that pool. I asked him how it was, and he said it was so fun. So I said he might have to be our air pilot for this new pool.