Tweet

Thirty-year-old Dutch windsurfer Dorian van Rijsselberghe is the proud owner of two RS:X windsurfing Olympic gold medals. He won his first at the 2012 Olympics in Weymouth, and second at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. And needless to say, he has his eyes set on number three in Tokyo in 2020! Dorian gives us an insight into his life, thoughts on foiling and the PWA and just what it takes to be an Olympic champion.

Words  Dorian Van Rijsselberghe  // Photos  John Carter

---

BACKGROUND
I grew up in Texel, an island off the north coast of the Netherlands. It is on the North Sea; on one side we have waves and on the other, the super nice, smooth waters of the Wadden Sea, where at low tide you can walk everywhere so it is a very easy place to learn. My brother is four years older than me and both he and my father were the first to windsurf in our family. About the age of six I started for the first time in the summer holidays. Once I started I was totally hooked and by the time I was thirteen I was already competing.

FOIL
We are trying to make a big push with foiling for the Olympics, so it’s great to see how the PWA do it and that is why I came to Costa Brava. When it was 50 knots we saw the big guys handle that very well and it was interesting to watch how the lighter guys could cope and what the different sailors are capable of. I wanted to see and clarify a few issues for myself. I think foiling could go into the Olympics and would be a very exciting class to watch. I also think there is a broad spectrum of conditions the class would be able to compete in. Peter Bijl sorted me out with the latest Gun foil sails, he is a good friend of mine and over the winter I had tried a couple of prototypes. I am enthusiastic about them and like the feeling they have. I also like to be a little different than the rest of the guys. So I committed to them and I think it is great to see something else instead of all the high aspect sails and new ideas on the water. With the Future Fly boards, Arnon is a great guy and was willing to help me out with the board and I am super stoked about that. I also have Phantom foils underneath my boards to keep me flying. Basically I just picked and chose a few bits of equipment. They were maybe not the most obvious choices but I am happy with it.

I love foiling. With the RS:X we don’t go that fast and with the foiling it feels like a whole new sport. We go pretty quickly even in light winds. You can also be scared when you are on the edge with the foil. In Costa Brava the breeze was 30-50 knots and everybody was capable of getting around the course when the wind eased slightly. This was the first time any of the guys had sailed in that much breeze. The guys were learning and improving by the hour, so imagine if they had a couple more hours to tune in. So this showed there is potential to race in strong winds, so once everybody is dialled in and have their settings right they will be able to race even when it is nuking.

PWA
Coming to the PWA as an Olympian, people obviously know me in the sport, but I am definitely not treated like some kind of mega-star, I’m just, ‘the dude from RS:X who won the gold medals!’. I have no track record on the foil and nothing to prove in my eyes. I am just here to have a good time and check it out. If I do well that’s great, if I don’t that is also fine. I would like to be competitive but who knows. It is really cool to sail with all the PWA legends. When I was a little kid this was the tour that I looked up to. It is awesome to be at a PWA event, even though with a sport like windsurfing we treat everybody as equals. Everybody here loves the sport, not for the money they earn but purely because they are passionate about the sport. I think there will be a lot more RS:X guys coming into the PWA. This is one of the few classes that we can have that crosses over. This is really cool because it is much more interesting for everybody.

COSTA BRAVA
This event was definitely different to what I am used to in all possible ways. One of the reasons for us to be here was to see what the potential for an Olympic class would be. That vision has become clearer after Costa Brava. There are certain things from the racing here we can add to the vision and a few we can take away. It was great to see the way the guys all helped each other out. Everybody is very passionate about sailing at the PWA. The day it was fifty knots was great. We need those days once in a while. It was good to push ourselves. A lot of guys made a lot of big steps forward within an hour of sailing in that crazy breeze. I enjoyed the slalom foiling. I prefer the course racing side of foiling more than the slalom, but I do think there is a time and place for the slalom and it can be spectacular. I had a lot of fun gybing with all the PWA guys around. There are lots of variables tuning up your foil gear. You have the trim of the sail, the foil rake, the foil wing rail,… the trim of everything! It is not plug and play anymore. It is complicated, but it is fun to geek out a little bit. I think we can now sail in 6-40 knots and it’s pretty amazing to see what is possible.

THIRD GOLD
I am very competitive. If I think I have the slightest chance of winning I will give it my absolute best shot. If I sniff a little bit of opportunity I will try and take it. I also have to be realistic sometimes.

Potentially I will be going for gold again. At the moment we are in the middle of the qualification series where there is another Dutch guy Kiran Badloe who is also doing extremely well. He is also my training partner. We are in a neck and neck race to go to the games in Tokyo. There is a three way event qualification – last year, this year and next year for the world championships. Whoever does best out of those three goes to the games. There is only one rider from each country unfortunately. He is my good friend and we travel together and train together. He is also my main rival. The cool thing is that we are both really proud of each other and have both been 1st and 2nd at the worlds and Europeans. We are doing a good job and smashing it! So hopefully we can keep going like that all the way to the games. It is a bit of a shame that we are possibly the best two in the world and only one of us gets to go. That is the way it is. We can get frustrated by it, but that is just life and complaining will not contribute anything. We put it to one side and both just try our best. We both want to go to the games but if either of us loses then we will be rooting for the other guy. If he beats me, I’ll make sure that Kiran will be able to win it. Besides that I just want to cruise on my foil stuff and have as much fun as possible.

DEDICATION
When I was thirteen years old we were sitting in the living room with my brother and my dad and we were talking about goals for windsurfing. I said, ‘OK I want to go to the 2012 Olympic Games and I want to win a gold medal!’ Instead of laughing at his 13 year old son, my dad said, ‘Ok, let us write down a plan and step by step make sure you have the opportunity to reach your goals’. From there on we planned what it takes to achieve a gold medal and went for it. It did not feel like I was sacrificing anything, I just enjoy windsurfing so much that every step felt great.

I did a lot of blocks of training on mountain bikes, cardio training, air rowing and all those methods to help us pump the sails in no wind. The main training for me was the quality hours on the water with the RS:X. Those hours are golden. You have to put the time in and that for me is what paid off. The rule I heard is that you need to do over 10,000 hours to be successful at anything and I think I am well over that! We usually sail between 2-4 hours, but we make sure that that time on the water is well spent.

My first Gold was in Weymouth 2012 at the London Olympics. It was very satisfying when I won. I am not the type of guy who goes crazy when he wins. I was just in the boat with my coach after I won the last race that ensured victory. I just had this real satisfaction from within. I gave my coach a big hug and we just said, ‘Ok this is it, we did it!’ That was six or seven years of full dedication that had paid off. It was super important to have a coach like Aaron McIntosh, he is the perfect person to keep me in check, making sure I don’t spin out and keep my cool, so my coach helped a lot!

I was lucky enough to be the athlete selected to hold the Olympic flag for the Dutch team at the opening ceremony. Normally the most decorated Olympian is the chosen one to do this, so this was a big ‘no no’. I was selected to inspire a new generation of athletes and they thought I was the guy to do it. So there was this little kid from Texel who nobody knew about and coming from a small sport like windsurfing it was very exciting. Being able to finish it off with a gold medal was the icing on the cake. Coming home I made quite a bit of news.

MONEY
We definitely do not make big money, even after two golds. I think I earn similar to the top PWA riders. We are fortunate enough to have government funding so we have a base salary we can count on. On top of that we need to also pick up sponsors to do a proper job at it. I always tell people I am not buying big houses all over the world, I am just a regular guy who loves windsurfing and why would I quit something that I love to do.

DORIAN FOUNDATION
This is a foundation on the island of Texel where I grew up to help talented athletes participate in bigger events not only on the island but also on the mainland. It is not just giving them money to help them out but more finding out what they need and using my contacts to aid them. So I am using all the connections that I have built up over the years with the people around me and putting them to good use to make shortcuts for all the kids.

FARM IDEAS
My dad has some radical salt farming ideas. He is growing vegetables for salt water conditions. A lot of the world has a problem with rising seawater levels, which obviously contains salt water and that makes a lot of land unusable. There are a not a lot of crops that can grow in these areas. He has been developing with some Dutch universities new plants and rediscovering old plants that have resistance to salt water.

WAVES  FESTIVAL
WAVES is a sports and music festival on Texel that I created. In the last three or four years we have had a windsurf race around the island. It is a super cool event. This year we will also have a foil grand prix and the idea behind that is to do as much foiling as possible with different formats. There will be lots of music to make it a bit like Sylt. I really wanted to have an event like that.

CALIFORNIA
I moved to California because of my wife who is Canadian. She started a cosmetic company and the main laboratory that they use for all their skin care products and lipsticks is based in Los Angeles. I hardly windsurf over there as it is not a super windy place, but for surfing and surf foiling it is very good. As for the future, in recent years I have only looked four years ahead at a time and then it is just a countdown to the next Olympics and then again to the next one. After that I have no idea to be honest!

“With a sport like windsurfing we treat everybody as equals.”