Mikey Clancy´s career seemed to go perfect. He had excellent competition results at a young age already, focused more and more on pure wavesailing and trained a lot at his homespots in Ireland or in Pozo Izquierdo on Gran Canaria. 2009 he got the chance to compete on the PWA wave tour and finished at Pozo and Sylt on the 25th position. Overall he also finished in excellent 25th position in his first year on the PWA worldtour. But a bad ankle injury stopped him in autumn 2009 and several months without windsurfing followed. After surgeries and a long reahabilitation, where Mikey´s foot was fixed in a cage, he is now back on the water and will compete as well at the upcoming Fuerteventura Wave Classic, which will be started on the 8th of February. Read the interview with Mikey.
Mikey at Rocky Point Fuerteventura
C7: Hi Mikey, how are you doing?
Mikey Clancy: Hey C7. Im doing well, had a nice christmas at home in Ireland with family and a few cooold windsurfing sessions. Yep, my ankle injury is fully recovered now. I have no pain when windsurfing with it and have sailed in some big swells this winter with it so I am pretty confident about competing on Fuerteventura.
C7: Since when you are back in the waves again and how many percent are still missing, or are you on 100% again?
Mikey Clancy: Well, since a couple of weeks after I got the cage off I was back on the water already, but back then I was still doing intensive rehab on my ankle to strengthen it up so I was only sailing back and forth. By the end of summer my ankle was already feeling stronger and almost better, but I decided not to push myself and take the autumn winter season in Ireland to get back into wave sailing and jumping. I would say I am 100% recovered, but I have lost a lot of flexibility in the ankle itself as it is now fused but what the good thing is that my ankle just feels like my ankle as if its always been that way.
Mikey with the organizer of the Fuerte Wave Classic Orlando Lavandera
C7: You will compete at the Fuerteventura Wave Classic, which will start on Tuesday. Are you excited about this comeback in the competition after almost a 15 months long break?
Mikey Clancy: I am so excited to be back and doing what I love best. It has been a long journey, but one that I feel has thought me some great lessons about life and how amazing it is to be doing what we are doing. I can remember tuning into last years event watching every day the live updates whilst learning how to walk with the cage on my foot. So I am so pleased to be able to make it to this one this year.
C7: How did your sponsors deal with the situation, that you were off windsurfing for a while?
Mikey Clancy: My sponsors were pretty understanding. I was a long time off the water with no results or images, and there was a lot of doubt wether I would be able to windsurf again. Starboard are an amazing company and ever since I joined as a kid have seen everyone of the employees as one big family and it was really encouraging and a great motivating factor to know that they were going to stick by you. Its up to me now to show, why they stuck by me I guess 😀
C7: You are just 20 years old, so your windsurfing career is still a very young one, right?
Mikey Clancy: There is a long road ahead for me in my windsurfing career. I am a bit behind in where I wanted to be with my career, but sometimes life goes that way. For this year I plan to do some international events and the UK and Irish Series and keep on improving my windsurfing on the water. On of the most valuable lesson I learned for any young rising sports person was the necessity for you to be educated. To go to university and do a diploma or a craft in another field aside from being a windsurfer superstar or whatever you may be. As not only do this give you more drive and motivation to succeed at your sport, but it also can benefit your career as a sportsperson in a multitude of ways.
Mikey at one at his homespots
C7: What do you expect from the Fuerte Wave Classic event now? You did a Wave Classic Invitational already, perhaps the hardest one on La Reunion!
Mikey Clancy: Since the first Fuerte Wave Classic was on I wanted to do it. The event organization looks really great along with the amazingly talented bunch of riders, which will be on the Fuerte Wave Classic 2011. The wave classic in Reunion was probably one of the standout trips of my life: sick conditions, loads of sailing, loads of fun and some of the biggest stunts going down in the competition. I hope we get some nice swells and have another sick event and show to the world, how good Europe can be and how great windsurfing is.
C7: Do you know the North Shore of Fuerteventura?
Mikey Clancy: Well I have only been sailing on the south of the island as a kid at the young guns camp in Sotavento. So the spots up north are all completely new too me.
C7: What gear will you bring on the island?
Mikey Clancy: I will take my S1s between 4.0 and 5.0 and few masts, boom etc. a 74 Quad IQ and 86 Evo IQ for the light days.
Mikey at Rocky Point on Fuerteventura
C7: What else will you bring for sure?
Mikey Clancy: My surfboard.
C7: How did you prepare for the event?
Mikey Clancy: I did training, some running, cycling, gym work and windsurfing. Now I am already on Fuerteventura since the 22nd of January and I am gonna stay there until the end of the competition (I cant hack sailing with snow on the beach anymore!!!!). Â So hopefully I will be well tuned into the conditions by the time the FWC begins.
C7: Would you wish to get really big conditions like on the video event teaser?
Mikey Clancy: If we were to get a swell like that would be awesome. It will sort the men out from the boys for sure anyway.
Thanks for the interview and read more about Mikey on his blog.
© continentseven.com 2011
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More pictures from Mikey
Mikey – great to see you back in form again and good luck on the FWC!!
Nice pictures, the last one is SICK!
Good luck on the FWC!
Stoked to see you rip again Mikey! Thumbs up buddy!