Words by Shana Chandra. Photos by Mitchell Lyne and Nuria Casamira.

I first met Aussie longboarder Mia Francis over dinner at a touristy bistro in Biarritz, a day after she won the Vans Queen Classic Surf festival, and knew she was a champion after she smoothly ordered steak frites—well done—from the French waiter who was trying to convince otherwise.

It's this combo of knowing what she wants, a rollicking sense of humour, and down-to-earth fun that’s reflected in her surfing - she’s just there to have a good time. You can tell when she’s got her toes to the nose, and her mega-watt smile not only lights up her face, but everyone’s around her, that she is. Her elegant form and calm on the waves bely her young years but having grown up at the beach and been a lifesaver as a mere teenager, you know this Lennox Head native has her head screwed on. This is why seeing her take the title of the competition and being crowned to ABBA’s Dancing Queen in Basque Country felt so right.

Despite the bougie-ness of Biarritz—this is where chateaus dot the coastline, and the well-heeled have always come to play (Napoleon’s imperial residence still stands at the end of La Grand Plage). When the Queen Classic Surf Festival takes over the town, late August or early September, it’s always a vibe. Complete with music gigs, art tents, skate ramps, discussions on pertinent issues affecting the female surf scene, and of course the best female longboarders from all over the world hanging ten and hanging out, it’s clear with her win, that Mia is now well on her way to being one of them.

Hey Mia. Welcome back from Biarritz and congratulations again!

Thank you!

So before we get into your win, give me a little bit of your background with longboarding - tell me how long you’ve been doing it for and how you got into it.

My childhood was beachside. We grew up three streets up from Lennox Beach. I used to ride my bike with my longboard down to the point or the boat channel and surf there before I had my driver’s license. I think my Dad has been my role model in surfing because surfing with him is home. That’s my childhood. As I’ve had Instagram and YouTube, being able to watch people like Devon Howard, Steph Gilmore, and Karina Rozunko, all those surfers and longboarders with style from all over the world, it’s just fast paced and made my surfing so much more important to me because I love them, and I love surfing. Being a part of surfing feels like just the right place for me.

Was your Dad a longboarder too?

My dad grew up on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. He surfs long boards, short boards, twin fins and quads, everything. In the water, my dad is relaxed and at a young age that helped me enjoy the water. I see him having a good time with his friends and that’s what surfing is. 

And that’s the most important thing, if you’re not having fun why are you even doing it?

 Totally. For me surfing is not just standing up on a board. That’s not the best part of surfing. Paddling out in the morning when the sun’s rising and there are dolphins and fish and you’re with someone that’s family, or someone that you love or going on holidays and experiencing the ocean in different parts of the world—that’s surfing for me. It’s not just standing up on a board, killing it, and looking amazing.

What’s the best thing about surfing in Oz and your favourite spots there, compared to surfing in Biarritz? Was it your first time surfing overseas?

Growing up, the majority of my overseas travel whether it was intentional or not have always been surf holidays. I’ve been to Fiji, Canada, Samoa, Bali, New Zealand, the Mentawais, and now France. The drive to go on these holidays hasn’t always been surfing but it always is the experience I love, because I am drawn to the ocean.

My favourite thing about surfing in a new country is the adventure. At home, I know where to go on certain conditions but that is all thrown out the window when you’re on the other side of the world. I really love the stories from the 70’s Bob Mctavish era and I dream of that simplicity in my lifestyle, waking up, driving up or down the coast in search of waves, and no need for any high-tech equipment, just a board and good company. 

While in Biarritz, the waves at Cote des Basques were similar to Lennox's main beach, although the long tides are different, the waves are similar. Don’t get me wrong I love point breaks, but I also love floating between peaks at a beach break. Seeing swell on the horizon I know where I want to be sitting, which wave of the set I want, and how I can gain speed or stall on the wave to get the most out of it. I was a little bit nervous at the Queens surf comp, I was on a borrowed board from Clovis and it was my second day surfing on it but I still felt connected with the waves, ocean, and the break.

What’s been your favourite place to surf in your travels? 

All the tropical places are my favourite. But when I lived in Canada, I lived there for six months when I did a ski season, which is what I went over there for. But after a month of being there, I ended up being on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada and lived in Tofino. I worked there for $12 an hour doing surf instructing. It was a bad time of year because it was so cold, so I was getting no tips, and people were so cold they’d just leave but it was incredible because it was so different for me. As I said, all my childhood holidays were tropical. So Canada was insane, even being out in the water and seeing bears on the beach and eagles flying over you – it was so raw. I can’t describe it enough, it felt like I was in a David Attenborough documentary. I’d think, ‘Where the heck am I?’ I love those moments when I’m on a surf holiday and it’s so out of the normal, but it’s still normal because I’m surfing. I’ve still got a board under my arm, but the whole surroundings are completely torn away and are replaced by something so different.

You got invited to the Vans Queen Classic Surf Festival this year. Tell me what it was like getting invited and how it all came about.

For the past two years, I had seen the event and I knew friends who had been there and raved about it. They all said it was so much fun, and that the girls were awesome. I don’t love competing but that’s something that I wanted to do – go and hang out and surf over there and be part of the festival. I messaged them on Instagram and said that I was hoping to come to Biarritz. I didn’t know the dates and was all really inquiring. They said, ‘Yeah we have one spot left,’ so I got the last spot out of the twenty girls. That was it and that night we booked flights.

The whole thing seems so fated. What I love about the comp is the vibe that the festival brought to Biarritz.

The festival has character.

And what’s so interesting is that it also provided an open space where people openly discussed topics currently affecting the surf world, such as homophobia, the hypersexualisation of surf marketing, violence against females… Are some of these issues things you’ve come across since you’ve been on the board, or are there others that have frustrated you since you’ve been surfing?

There’s a really amazing Transgender woman named Sasha (Jane Lowerson) that I was l was lucky enough to compete with, in an Australian surf festival a couple of years back now. Out of everyone she stood out in terms of how nice she was, how big her heart was, and just how stoked she was to be there. 

Sasha had travelled from Western Australia but got backlash for being a transgender woman competing in the competition. It was before Bethany Hamilton had spoken out about her view on transgender females competing in surfing, and that sparked up a lot of conversation online and on social media. But all I know is that the most stoked person out there on the water that day was her. And at the end of the day, who cares about your skill — she was just so lovely and so nice.

I feel like the Queens Classic Surf Festival is so needed this year, especially. By promoting equality and support and everything that the Queens is about, it really just sums up and promotes what surfing is actually like for a lot of people in 2023. When I was there, all weekend, everyone was dressed amazing, had incredible views and I had the best conversations with people. I think for the majority of people, that’s how we see the world. At the end of the day, we all are just supporting each other, no matter who you are, I feel like we should be supporting them even if the festival is Queens or not.

With it being your first time surfing in France, is there anything that stuck out to you in terms of the way things are done differently over there? Any crazy stories?

The big difference is the leg rope legal situation. For us in Lennox, it’s a safety measure. Over there, having a leg rope attached is the law, and if you lose your board, the lifeguards will come to take your board and take it to the cop shop. Then you have to go and pay 20 euros to get your board back, which was news to us. Before starting the comp we had to sign a waiver to agree with the law which was that we would wear the leg rope while in competition and any surfs around the comp site. 

I get that they’re looking out for the safety of the people in the water, and there’s probably five times the number of people at Cote des Basques that there is in Lennox, so I get that they’re trying to monitor and crack down on it. But people will still paddle and throw their boards whether they have a leash or not. 

Another huge difference is the landscape. The landscape is incredible. Every building looks like a chateau, so when you’re in the water, you turn around to look back at that. When I was in the Finals, there was a lower tide so there were slower waves and a longer time in between the sets. I was sitting out there, and I kept on trying to stay in line with a certain landmark, so I’d turn around to look at that, but then I’d see a crowd of people, all these beautiful, coloured flags, these chateaus behind the beach, and it was so surreal that I was there. I couldn’t care less about the outcome of that twenty minutes because I was so in the moment.

You ended up winning the competition. When you were out there did you have an inkling that you might’ve won?

Not at all. I thought I came fourth and I was so happy with that. I was stoked to have made the semi-final because, at that point, all I could think was, ‘This is awesome, I can surf twice with only three other girls on this bank.’ That was my goal - to surf, and get that opportunity as many times, so I could sit wherever I wanted, get the waves I wanted, and just enjoy the ocean without the normal crowd on the bank.

But I ended up winning my heat, I won the semi, and I won the quarterfinals. There were four times that I surfed, and I won each one. Each time, Mitch [her boyfriend] and I were laughing, because I don’t have a coach or have any tactics. But I didn’t feel like any of the other girls were doing that either. I’ve been at comps where some girls are really gnarly, and it gets really tactical, but this festival was different. It felt like the social side of the comp was set in 2023, but the comp side felt like it could’ve been set many years ago because it was so friendly, the girls were super chill, and no one was out there to make money. 

Do you think it was the culture of the competition that created that atmosphere? Because it’s more a celebration of surfing and its lifestyle as opposed to a competition?

For sure. I didn’t go into the event knowing there was prize money, I wasn’t there to get anything out of it. I just wanted the experience because I’d seen that it was so much fun. They have dance parties at night, and it’s this fun, be who you are, vibe that the Queens is all about. I think it’s different for comps to not to be competitive and I love that they call it a festival because it does really feel like one.

How did you celebrate the win, and how were you feeling?

We surfed the final and there was a five-hour window that afternoon where they didn’t tell anyone the results, and then we came back that night for the presentation. Of course, I was going to go, but I was in no rush to get there!

They called us behind the stage, and I went to go behind the stage, but I didn’t have a band on because I didn’t go to the party the night before, so the security guard wouldn’t let me in. And I was like, ‘It’s all good, I’ll just watch.’ Then one of the girls came running up and said, ‘No you have to let her in, she was in the surfing competition, she surfed in the final.’ And obviously, he’s a security guard, and that’s not one of his priorities, but anyway, they let me in. Then we went on the stage, and I just couldn’t believe how many people were there. It was beautiful. From the stage I could see a sea of people, then the skate ramp that was still set up in the distance, and then that castle on the cliff. I could see my boyfriend in the crowd, and I was smiling and laughing at him because I just kept thinking, ‘What am I doing up here?’

I never thought, ‘Yes I’m going to win this.’ Maybe I thought that at comps when I was younger, but I’d done so many comps and lost. I’m so good at losing that I never expected to win.

Now having won the competition have you had more interest?

Yeah, I got a noticeable bit of traction straight away from the comp. When I put my story post up that I won, I got over 400 messages on my phone. It was kind of overwhelming because I was processing in my head whether I cared about it or not. I’ve gotten comfortable with not winning or falling short of where I’d like to finish, and always thought ‘Oh well, who cares?’. I don’t need my results to tell me that I enjoyed my day surfing. So, I’ve never justified winning a surf comp as doing well, but then all of a sudden, this thing happened, and it was so fun, and I had everyone patting me on the back. But then again, it was nice to have the next day to myself, just me and my boyfriend at the beach, having a picnic in the sun, and just kind of getting back to reality. I want my projects that I love, and to work with brands when it’s aligned and when it’s for a good cause and after travelling I feel really inspired to pursue those. 

I admire your social presence because it feels so authentic to you, and you’ve managed to avoid that overt sexiness.

I think my parents, growing up, they’d just hand me my pink wetsuit and say, ‘Go and do your thing’. I really wasn’t running around in bikinis trying to get a tan, I was coming in from the surf with hair all over my face, covered in seaweed, saying, ‘Oh my god I just got barrelled!’ I didn’t really care about that stuff. I feel like there hasn’t been any stage of my life where I’ve gone, ‘I don’t want to be beautiful’, or ‘I don’t want to wear bikinis’, it’s just that I’m just comfortable with doing what I do, that’s just who I am.