Before Nick Haynes was flying for marks in the AFL he was flying along the water as a skimboarder.
GIANT Nick Haynes has opened up about his career as a semi-professional skimboarder on the latest episode of The Footy Phil.
The defender joined co-captain Phil Davis and GIANTS Media’s Alison Zell on the latest episode of podcast and talked about his short but successful career in the extreme sport.
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The now 26-year-old was once ranked amongst the best skimboarders in Victoria.
“I loved football growing up… and I got to under-13s and I kind of lost a bit of interest in football,” he said.
“I got a hold of some board sports, skateboarding, snowboarding and all that stuff.
“I grew up on the beach, which in Port Phillip Bay is a nice flat beach and I’d like to have gone out surfing but the only thing you could do there was a thing called skimboarding.”
Haynes’ mother gifted him a board at 14 and after initially being “horrendous” at the sport and despite taking a lot of falls, he persevered and eventually topped his age group.
“I worked on my craft over a year or two and I became friends with a few people I admired (in the sport),” he said.
“Then we started to push each other and at the Frankston Foreshore Festival each year there was a skimboard competition, which is the one day of the year that Frankston comes together.
“First year I was bottom aged 18s and I came 10th I think, I got into the finals and was pretty happy with that.
“The next year I was at the top of my year and had really improved and I came first.
“That’s when the sponsors started flocking in.”
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