Karissa Dalton, whose eight-year marriage to Australian surfing star Mick Fanning has officially ended, is not your average sporting star’s wife.

She’s a successful business operator and a fiercely determined career woman. She’s no media darling.

Four-time world champion Fanning, who is notoriously private about his personal life, uncharacteristically posted a lengthy tribute to Dalton on social media on Sunday, confirming their split. He had nothing but “love and respect” for his ex-wife, he wrote.

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“Late last year we made the tough mutual decision to move on separately,” Fanning wrote, adding: “It feels weird to put our personal life out there like this, but we want to eliminate any speculation about this decision.”

Throughout their marriage Dalton, a former swimsuit model turned successful wedding blogger, chose to focus on her career rather than interviews and the social circuit.

This meant the pair, who met when Dalton was just 20 years old, spent considerable time apart, with Fanning on tour for much of the year.

A model with bigger plans

Dalton was a film student at Bond University when she met Fanning, as well as being a part-time model. The stunning brunette won Miss Calendar Girl Australia in 2007, but never intended to model full-time.

Dalton in her modelling days. Photo: Instagram

Instead, Dalton said she wanted to produce music videos for bands, and cited travelling and beach volleyball as some of her interests.

The driven young model’s ‘ideal man’ back then was someone “ambitious” and “down to earth”.

It was the following year in 2004 (before Fanning had won his first world title) when Fanning and Dalton got together.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Dalton described her first date with Fanning, who cooked her a roast dinner.

“When I met Mick, I was oblivious to who he was, but it was good to not have any preconceptions about him,” she said.

Two years later, Fanning proposed to Dalton – then just 23 years old – and the two set about deciding how their careers could co-exist.

Competing schedules

“When he told me he was away for up to nine months of the year, I thought, ‘How is this going to work?’ It’s definitely had its challenges, but we’ve worked through them,” Dalton said in the 2014 interview.

Fanning and Dalton married on the Gold Coast in 2008.

Clearly averse to the life of a travelling companion, Dalton decided not to join Fanning on tour, instead spending time in the USA expanding her wedding directory website, TheLane.com.

“Lots of the wives and girlfriends go on tour, but that wasn’t right for me. I’m expanding my business overseas, so we do our own thing and we’re both passionate about that,” said Dalton.

The result of Dalton’s hard work is ‘The Lane’, an online wedding directory with an Instagram following of 176,000.

Tapping into the ballooning wedding market in both Australia and the US, Dalton’s website provides brides with all the information, brands, interviews and style advice they need for their wedding day.

The busy Dalton also dabbles in wedding styling, editorial and advertising campaigns.

Dalton and Fanning in happier times.

Although there is no official word on the reason behind Fanning and Dalton’s split, it’s widely accepted their competing schedules played a part.

In 2015, when Fanning famously fought off a shark in the J-Bay Open in South Africa, the pair had reportedly already split, but decided to give marriage another try after the scare.

Fanning has thanked his wife for her support over the years – no easy feat when one considers the stress of international competition, the death of his two brothers and one very public near-death experience.

On the day Fanning announced the couple’s split, The Lane’s social media accounts and blogs didn’t miss a beat, continuing to operate on schedule.

Mick Fanning’s social media tribute