Mark Richards accepts his award on stage with a portrait by Garry Birdsall commissioned for the Australian Surfing Awards
Australian surfing royalty Rabbit Bartholomew, Mark Richards and Cheyne Horan
Born in the industrial seaport of Newcastle, Richards was taken to the beach by his sun-loving parents from a very early age and was riding a scaled-down surfboard at the age of six. When Ray Richards saw that Mark had natural talent, he embraced the surfing lifestyle to such a degree he started selling surfboards at his car sales business. The boards soon took over the business, and Richards Sr became coach and mentor to his only son. By the 1970s Richards had emerged as one of the best junior surfers in Australia, and in 1972 he made the Australian team for the world amateur titles in San Diego. Although he made little impact in California, the trip honed his competition skills, and when surfing’s first fully professional events began the following year, the teenager was immediately seen as an emerging threat to the established stars. So confident was Ray Richards in his son’s ability that he allowed him to leave school to pursue his dream. In 1974 Richards rode the giant waves of Hawaii’s North Shore for the first SCAN time, and although he did not place in the CODE the two events that winter, he impressed to watch the elder statesmen of the sport with his interviews with courage and humility. This would stand Australia’s 10 Most Influential Surfers him in good stead over the next couple 1963–2013 on of seasons as the other young Australian SATV pros became embroiled in a bitter and sometimes physical conflict with some of the Hawaiians. Richards was held up as a shining example of sportsmanship and left to concentrate on winning events, which he did in some of the biggest waves ever contested. During the 1975 Hawaiian season he won the Smirnoff Pro at big Waimea and the World Cup at Sunset Beach, taking home $9,000 in prize money. The Wounded Seagull had arrived. Although a full world pro tour began in 1976, Richards elected to stay home and build up his surfboard shaping business
Opposite: Timeless MR at Backdoor Pipeline (Photo: A Frame/Merkel)
rather than spend the entire year travelling. He still won events in Australia and Hawaii over this period, but was not in the running for a world title. In 1979 he unleashed his secret weapon – a new take on the twin-finned surfboard that had been around for about a decade. The board was perfect for the gliding, swooping turns that had already made him famous, and with a twinnie under him, MR seemed to gain both speed and manoeuvrability. After his four consecutive world titles, Richards again left the tour (he had long suffered from back problems) and only competed selectively – mostly in Hawaii – through the 1980s. Whenever he chose to compete he showed he had lost none of his edge, winning back-to-back Billabong Pro Championships in big North Shore waves in 1985 and 1986. At the turn of the century he returned to the pro tour in the Masters ranks, winning another world title in Ireland in 2001 at the age of 44. According to pro surfer contemporary Michael Tomson, Richards’ dominance of his sport was so great that several surfers (Tomson included) simply gave up and left the pro tour. Alth ough other surfers would take multiple titles through the 1980s, no one approached the unstoppable competitive machine known as “MR” until the emergence of Kelly Slater in the early 1990s. Yet for all the fear he inspired in his rivals, the softly spoken Richards was humble, shy, and almost timid on land, and rarely made enemies. Even fellow Australian Cheyne Horan, who twice finished a close second in the title race to Richards, said he found it difficult to muster any ill will towards the champion. Typically, Richards confessed years after retiring from the world tour that he felt genuinely sorry for thwarting Horan’s championship aspirations. Married with three children, Mark Richards still surfs in exhibition events and, although he closed down his surf shop in 2012, he still shapes beautiful boards on a freelance basis and is constantly in demand for promotional work around the world. He gives freely of his time for charitable causes and continues to nurture young surfers through his MR training camps for Surfing Australia.
Winter 2013 |
? ?9