📍Coolangatta QLD 4225, Australia
1993 – 2001“Michael Eugene Fanning was born in Penrith, in western Sydney, in June 1981, the youngest of five children of Irish parents. His parents separated, and his mother, Liz, moved the family several times before settling on the Tweed Coast and the southern Gold Coast, around Coolangatta, on the border between New South Wales and Queensland, where the long, peeling point breaks of Snapper Rocks, Rainbow Bay, Greenmount and Kirra run along the coast. Mick started surfing at about five, and on the Gold Coast he found his place in the water. At Palm Beach Currumbin State High School he became best friends with two other young surfers, Joel Parkinson and Dean Morrison, and the three became known as the Coolangatta Kids, pushing each other every day at Snapper Rocks and Kirra. His older brothers surfed too, and in 1998, when Mick was sixteen, his brother Sean was killed in a car accident, a loss that devastated the family, and Mick dedicated his surfing career to him. He worked hard and lived simply, determined to make it as a professional. In 2001, as a wildcard, he won the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach, and he went on to win three world titles, in 2007, 2009 and 2013. In 2015, during a contest final at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa, he fought off a shark on live television and survived unhurt, and came back to surfing. Nicknamed White Lightning, he became one of Australia's most loved surfers, and he has been inducted into the Gold Coast Sports Hall of Fame.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
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