Here we have it folks. Miky Picon is about to run around the world to get to Australia so he can lie in wait for the opening event of the 2009 ASP World Tour. His sights are set on the Gold Coast where Event No. 1 of the 2009 ASP World Tour, the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast, will get underway in a couple of weeks.

Photo: ASP Robertson/Covered Images

He joins six other Europeans on which has been dubbed the ‘dream tour’, to show the world of surfing how they tread water. He’s confident of a good European placement in every stage of the tour.

“I’ve had a great winter in France, I really love that time of the year at home and I feel like time has passed very quickly in the last couple of months. I made a few trips to Portugal during the heavy stormy weather in France, went to the Canary Islands as well to score some good waves there and I just enjoyed my time off from the tour. I had a couple of sessions at Mundaka as well during the winter, so it has been a lot of relaxed surfing and time off. The best surf of the winter was probably at the VVF in Capbreton, three guys out only and endless barrels peeling all day. Perfect.

I got back to serious training three weeks ago at home and since then, I haven’t left the Hossegor area and have been training really hard, every day. It’s been all about surfing, running, jiu jitsu fighting, sleeping… I feel good and confident with all I have done so far to prepare the Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast starting soon.

Talking about this upcoming new year on tour, I haven’t changed any major things regarding my training or boards. The idea is to stick to the same process that worked out well last year and remain focused on all aspects. I’ve spent a lot of time with my shaper Christian (Bradley) to prepare my quiver for the year during the break as well so I feel like pretty much everything is locked in for the start.

Apart from surfing and training, a bunch of us sat down quite a bit at the Quiksilver office in the Basque Country near Biarritz to work on the development of a new brand of underwear called “Moskova”. I had some tough moment as well with my uncle passing out this winter and it was pretty hard but being with the family all together helped a lot.

For now, I am looking forward to getting things underway and see the seven of us Europeans be together on tour. I think this new step in European surfing’s history is going to give us even more hunger and motivation to do well so I can’t wait to see how it goes. With seven Europeans on tour, there is a good chance to see at least one of us make a big result at every event this year. I am so stoked to see European surfing at the level it deserves.

I am off to Australia soon to get ready for the event.”

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