Joel Parkinson Speaks Up Regarding His Ankle Injury

Justin Cote

• August 11 2009
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• 4 comments

Joel Parkinson getting carried up the beach after winning the recent Billabong Pro Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa. Photo: Miller

Joel Parkinson Speaks Up Regarding His Ankle Injury

Combing through the news yesterday we came across a couple of scary reports of current ASP World Tour leader Joel Parkinson hurting his ankle while surfing in Bali. One report in particular from Stabmag.com made it sound like his career could be over, yet according to a post on his own blog, Parko is just fine having only rolled it attempting some Dane Reynolds kind of maneuver. Anyway, sounds like he’ll be good to go once the World Tour starts back up at the Hurley Pro at Lower Trestles September 13. Check out below what Parko had to say about his injury…

As reported on joelparko.com

I’ve just had scans done on it and it’s fine, it’s just a strained ankle.

I was surfing Canggu [Bali] late yesterday when it happened. I was out there thinking I was Dane Reynolds and I’ve just landed awkwardly on it after trying a reverse. Even though it’s okay now it fully scared me when I did it, cause my ankle rolled pretty heavily. It was hard not to think the worst when I first did it. It didn’t feel too good when I came out of the water and I needed a bit of help to get up the beach, but after 10 minutes I was walking round on it and the pain was backing off, so I knew I was probably going to be okay. You know how you see footballers get injured and it looks bad initially, but they run the injury out and finish the game? It was kind of like that. I’ve had enough bad leg injuries over the years to know a bad one when I feel it.

The craziest part of it was the stories I started reading online about it. It sounded like they were going to have to amputate my leg. I’m not sure who they all spoke to, cause I was reading stories saying I’d done it surfing Keramas, when I actually did it on the other side of the island at Canggu. It was the biggest storm in a teacup and I was laughing at some of the stuff that came out about it. I was flattered that so many people actually cared.

Parko en-route to a first place finish at the 2009 Billabong Pro Jeffrey’s Bay. Photo: Miller

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