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  • Published: 3 August 2009
  • ISBN: 9781741666762
  • Imprint: Ebury Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

Occy




'I think it's one of the great sports stories of all time.' Kelly Slater

'Occy was always a missile going hyperspeed, about to blow up at any moment. - it's true of so many highly intelligent or gifted people . . . All of his passion was put into his surfing.' Kelly Slater, eight-time world champion

Child star at sixteen, ranked third in the world at seventeen, winner of the Pipeline Masters at nineteen - Mark Occhilupo looked set to sweep all before him with a radical, spontaneous, irresistible brand of surfing. Yet a spiralling descent into drug abuse and depression snuffed his flame out prematurely when he quit the pro tour at just twenty-two. Faltered comebacks, spectacular bursts of free-surfing and manic breakdowns followed, as the surfing world watched a freakish talent self-combust.

After years spent immobile and overweight on the couch, in his so-called 'Elvis period', Occy eventually emerged from his cocoon, reborn and ready to tackle a whole new generation of surf stars. His celebrated comeback to win the world title in 1999, sixteen years after his career began, is a sporting fairytale without equal. In his own words, Occy tells the complete, remarkable story of his spectacular rise, terrifying fall and miraculous rebirth.

'By going down so hard, by fully falling apart, he was able to give himself longevity. It's like the Buddhist teachings about birth and death - something has to die for new birth to happen, and that happens inside us too. Occy was the ultimate example of that.' Tom Carroll.

  • Published: 3 August 2009
  • ISBN: 9781741666762
  • Imprint: Ebury Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the authors

Mark Occhilupo

Child star at sixteen, ranked third in the world at seventeen, winner of the Pipeline Masters at nineteen - Mark Occhilupo celebrated comeback to win the world title in 1999, sixteen years after his career began, is a sporting fairytale without equal.

Tim Baker

Tim Baker is the bestselling author of Bustin' Down the Door, High Surf, Occy, Surf for Your Life (with Mick Fanning), Surfari and Century of Surf. He is a former editor of Tracks and Surfing Life magazines. He has twice won the Surfing Australia Hall of Fame Culture Award and been nominated for the CUB Australian Sports Writing Awards. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review, the Bulletin, Inside Sport, Playboy, GQ, the Surfers Journal and Qantas: The Australian Way, as well as surfing magazines around the world.

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