Stronger

So, I was willing to work twice as hard to get back what I had and restart from there. After four months of rehab out of the water and a lot of help from my coach, Ruan Retief, in South Africa, I was finally able to kite and train again. During this time, I came up with my new motto: “work smart and hard.” Working hard to achieve my goals was clear to me, but the “work smart” part became more important than ever. Once I was able to train again, I had only one month left before the first stop of the GKA World Tour – Lords of Tram was due to take place in France. This spot has challenging and extreme conditions with cold weather in April. Not only that, but knowing that everyone else had trained harder than ever before was daunting. The level of Big Air among the women had risen exponentially, making it hard to keep up.

So here we were at Lords of Tram [pictured left] with just three weeks of training, preparation and getting used to the conditions in my bag. Without giving away too much of my strategy, I can say I was calmer than ever before in a competition. I knew what I had to do, and I did it. Perhaps my competition experience played a big role in this too. This is now my third year where my boyfriend Jason van der Spuy and I are competing internationally and traveling year-round to train in the best spots and conditions. He has been my greatest support and hands down the best caddy in every competition so far! The result was very close, I was exactly 0.67 points away from the final but I’m happy with my performance. I was one of the first women to ever land a double loop in competition.

The second event of the year was Full Power Tarifa in May. In this competition, I was anything but deeply relaxed, but I think no one was! The wind was gusting up to 50 knots, one of the strongest winds I’ve ever competed in. On top of that, there were zero kicker waves, making the take-offs challenging and the landings extremely choppy. I placed third in this event [pictured left]. It was insane but a great experience and a real confidence boost to know I can perform in any type of conditions. The next event is the second and last stop of the GKA World Tour in Gran Canaria. The world titles will be awarded at this event. I am currently ranked fifth in the world, but hope to improve on that.

I knew what I had to do to catch up on the months I’d lost over winter: technical training. So I decided to train in what I think is one of the best spots in the world – the speed spot in Dakhla, Morocco. Jason, Pippa van Iersel, Luca Ceruti and I decided to come here for one month and train together for the last stop of the tour. I’m very excited to have another girl around to train with because it is usually just me with a couple of guys. We are staying at PK25, which is the perfect all-around package. The spot is one tack downwind from a U-shaped sandbank in the lagoon. When the tide is low, the water is absolutely flat, and as soon as the tide starts to pull in, the water pushes in the opposite direction to the wind and creates perfect conditions and a lot of line tension. This spot is full of surprises. The wind channels through the big sand dunes surrounding the lagoon, and when the land is hot, it creates these perfect updrafts or the so-called “magic gusts.” If I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that Luca had floated in the air for about two minutes with his foil kite! It was phenomenal.

Every day at lunch, we check the forecast and plan for the next day. When the tide is right, we go to the speed spot. PK25 provides us with a boat to get there and back, so we can take a few kite sizes to choose from. This is very convenient because the wind is always much stronger than it seems at the hotel. The ride is around ten minutes long and always an adventure – last time we saw a pack of dolphins and followed them by boat! But back to the topic of lunch… The food here is nothing short of perfect. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served buffet-style, and it tastes as good as it looks, with plenty of healthy options. The staff here are super friendly and very funny too; they are already teaching us some of their traditions. We don’t have to worry about anything and can be 100% focused on training, exercise, recovery and having a lot of fun…