Two post-heat interviews quite unlike any you’ve ever seen before.

Courage is a funny thing. An abstract sense of moral responsibility, concern for a fellow human being, the fear of being considered a coward, pull in one direction; innate biological hardwiring, concern for oneself, the fear of a giant eating-machine, the awareness of one’s relative impotence, pull in the other. No time to think it through, barely time to make a decision, only time to act. We’d all like to think we’d paddle boldly over and come to the aid of a friend being attacked by a shark, but until you’re there in that situation you just don’t know what you’d do. Julian Wilson has been in that situation, and now he knows. He passed the test with flying colours.

Likewise, most people would like to think they’d be able to fend off a sizeable (3.5m, according to latest estimates) great white with nothing but a surfboard and their bare hands…