"I know that a friend can die at any time." Jorgann Couzinet's daily life is made up of contrasts, between moments of pleasure provided by the waves and the fear of death, which stalks every surfer in Réunion, the overseas department an region of France. Having arrived on the island at the age of 9, the Saint-Lizier, southern France, native is part of the "sacrificed youth," confronted with the risk of shark attacks since 2011 (25 attacks recorded, 11 of them fatal). "When I was a teenager, the best surfers in France came from Réunion," said the Frenchman nostalgically, who is hoping to secure a place at the next Olympic Games. "There will be a generational gap because they took too long to act."
Long before he became a professional surfer, Couzinet was a member of a daredevil caste who, from dawn to sunset, waited for the wave off the coast of Réunion. "I discovered surfing thanks to my older brother," he recalled. "I stole his red board and followed my friends into the water to surf." Two years after his debut, he made a name for himself in his first regional competition, taking second place in his "favorite spot" at Saint-Pierre, in the south of the island. Although he had no plans to make a living from it at the time, he "watched surfers' videos over and over again and tried to reproduce their tricks," said Couzinet, who has 15,000 YouTube subscribers.
But in 2011, his ascent came to a halt. That year, six surfers fell victim to shark attacks, two of them fatal – the 1994 French bodyboard champion Mathieu Schiller was killed on September 19. "It was a nightmare," recalled Couzinet. "At the time of the first attacks, we felt like we were living through Jaws." Following the upsurge in shark attacks, certain nautical activities were restricted in the overseas department. But the young man nevertheless won his first French championship title in 2013, at the age of 20.
Barely of age but determined to reach the top level, Couzinet was forced to leave his adopted homeland and move to Hossegor in southwest France. "I was really sad to leave Réunion. There are all kinds of waves there to learn to surf and become fully rounded. But the southwest (of France) was the right place to continue." Renowned for its spots stretching from the Landes to the Basque coast, the region hosts numerous surfing competitions, essential in the quest for visibility – and therefore sponsors.
"At first, I was losing out in competitions due to a lack of experience and, because I didn't have the budget, I couldn't train as hard as the others," explained the surfer, who hung in there and took on a series of odd jobs – pizza chef, Jet-Ski instructor – to fund his practice. Making progress, to the point of being called up to the French team for the first time for the EuroSurf 2015 in Morocco, where he took ninth place, the Frenchman achieved his first success in the second division of the World Surf League (QS) in 2017. The former member of the Saint-Leu Surf Club (Réunion) saw sponsors pour in, and was then able to "devote everything to surfing." Crowned European champion for the second time in 2019, he topped the QS world rankings but saw his trajectory interrupted in early 2020: "I got injured and, with the arrival of Covid-19, everything came to a halt." Couzinet isolated in Australia, then moved closer to his family in Réunion.
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