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DELPHINE COUSIN QUESTEL

From our August issue we caught up with Delphine Cousin Questel the PWA four time slalom world champion for this exclusive interview. 

PHOTOS – John Carter, Jean Souville, Théo Questel

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28-year-old French sailor Delphine Cousin Questel secured the 2019 PWA women’s slalom world title in Noumea, New Caledonia at the final event of the season. Despite starting with results below her normal expectations, Delphine managed to fight back and finish the event in 2^nd overall to clinch her 4^th slalom world title. John Carter finds out more about Delphine’s success story.

BACKGROUND

I always lived close to the sea with my parents in Brittany. They have a business selling seafood, lobster and crabs to the big supermarkets locally. I began windsurfing when I was eleven with my two brothers just in front of our home. I followed the traditional windsurf racing path, starting with upwind and downwind racing. My first important trophy was a third place in the French Championship in the BIC 293 class, I will never forget it! I have been very lucky to have the support of my parents; they helped me a lot in my early career. Also, my brother Alexandre competes on the PWA world tour (Editor’s note – Alexandre is the 2019 PWA Men’s Foil Racing vice world champion!), so we’re a proper windsurf family. I decided to compete in slalom after doing three years of RS:X. After school I went to a business college in Brest close to my home in Brittany. I was there for five years to get my master’s in business studies. Now I live in St. Barts in the winter where my husband is from. We stay there from December to March and then the rest of the year I am in Brittany or at events. It is easier to be in Europe to compete and travel to competitions.

WORLD TITLE NUMBER FOUR

Noumea was one of the most stressful events in my career, but the fight back at the end of the event was something I was very proud of. I started the event badly, lying fourth after the first two days and would have lost the title if it had stayed that way. I said to myself, just forget those two days and reset. I just focussed on what I had to do and made sure I had good starts. Starting was my weakness at the beginning and lead to other mistakes. At the end I had great starts and forgot what I did before. I am super happy to win my fourth world title and also the foil title this season. Next year is going to be a tough year as the level is getting higher and higher. The fight with Marion Mortefon is getting stronger each year we compete. This title was one to remember, especially how I managed to recompose and fight back at this event to win it.

RACER AT HEART

I do a small amount of wave sailing, but I like to keep that just for pleasure. I am a racer at heart. I like to race with others, to be on the same starting line, to be on the same course and the direct confrontation between sailors. This is what I enjoy. I am competitive for sure. If you do this sport at a high level, you have to be a competitor.

TRAINING

The main time I work out is during winter when I am in St. Barts. I go to the gym five times a week and sail in the afternoon. This is a typical day for me. Between competitions I still go to the gym, but I think the most important training is just sailing a lot. There is so much testing to be done as well, fins, masts, sails and boards, as well as practising starts and gybes. The physical training is important, but the most important thing is to be on the water. A typical week for me in St. Barts is 5 days a week Monday to Friday, starting at 07:30 a.m., I do different activities to get fit for the season. Monday is Crossfit, Tuesday – Cardio, Wednesday – Pilates and/or Cardio, Thursday – Weights, Friday – Cardio (biking).  And of course when it’s windy, I sail after my workouts.

ANTOINE QUESTEL

I met Antoine as he was a friend of my brother Alexandre and they were training together in my home spot in Brittany. So we can say we met on the water! We have been together for 11 years and married for 3 years. I like being a married couple on tour! We are actually doing everything together, not just windsurfing, but also going to the gym for example. We compete almost at the same events during the year and we have the same way of life. I feel lucky to share so many moments with my husband!

It is very useful to be married to Antoine, especially now we have the same sponsors. When we are at competitions we know if we break something, we always have spare parts, masts or sails or booms. For training we exchange a lot of information, when Antoine tests and finds positive feedback he tells me and vice-versa. This makes us progress faster; he is my training partner. I can’t do speed tests with him because for sure he is faster than me, but to exchange tips about tuning helps a lot.

FMX

I am really happy about my new partnership with FMX Racing boards for 2020. For me it’s a great opportunity to have the chance to collaborate with Finian Maynard. I am looking forward to working with a ‘smaller’ brand because I think you have a closer relationship with the sponsor, as is the case already with S2 Maui. You have your importance within the brand and you are aware about everything happening! It’s also important for Antoine and myself to have the same sponsors for a question of image and ease of communication and of course to prepare us for the PWA tour. For us, it’s a big advantage! The first test with the new boards has been really positive and I can’t wait to be on the starting line soon with these new weapons.

TOUR

I have been doing the PWA tour for over ten years now. In the beginning I was young and there were a lot of French girls who were taller than me. Now I am one of the older ones, along with Marion Mortefon, and there are a lot of new young girls arriving. I think now I am the old girl on tour. I am only twenty-eight but still feel I am improving.

WINDSURFING

My brothers windsurf, my husband windsurfs, and everybody around me is a windsurfer. Even when I stop competing for sure I will continue to windsurf because it is something I love. At the moment I am a professional windsurfer and make enough money to do this full time as my job. I take things year by year; each January when I sign my contracts, I know I can do this one more year. I’m happy I am getting paid to do what I love; I’m going with the flow for now. For 2020 I will try to win the PWA title again, both in slalom and in foil. Maybe with foiling now in the Olympics I will try that, I haven’t decided, it could be a crossroads moment.

FOILING

It is exciting to have women competing in foiling, I would like more girls to get involved. There is not a lot of girls foil racing at the moment. For me foiling is so much fun and something new. It is an amazing discipline. I really love it. I hope we can make it bigger for the women on tour. I hope we have a strong fleet and show we are able to do great things with the foils as well as the men.

GIRLS ON TOUR

It is a difficult sport for girls I think. It is not easy because windsurfing is not an easy sport to learn for women physically. Sometimes the guys are not really nice with us on the tour. In surfing and other sports, they have equal prize money and equality. In windsurfing we are really far off that. The mentality is really different. The brands do not treat us equally. Since I have been competing, I don’t see any change. They say we are women, there are less women windsurfing, so we deserve less money than the guys. It has always been like that. For me this is quite frustrating. I try to keep my motivation and all that, but some days I think why am I doing all this work for so much less money than the guys? It is not easy, but we keep trying and hope one day things will change. I have been world champion four times now and nothing much has changed. I am windsurfing for myself. We know that the windsurf world is a macho sport. It is like that. As girls we are trying to change this, but it is very difficult. We try step by step.

It is difficult to get more girls to join us. When I started windsurfing there were not a lot of girls on the French tour. We had three or four girls. Now we have twenty, which is great. I think because I am world champion and competing on the French tour it helps motivate more girls to come. They begin with the French tour and we then try to motivate them to do the PWA. It is not easy for them because in the windsurf world it is not easy for the girls to get any money.

HIGHLIGHT

I think my first world title was the best memory for me so far. It was really something I did not expect because when I won my first title it was not my goal at the beginning of that year. I was so happy about that; it gave me a lot of motivation to continue and to be still here today. That was in 2013 and after that I always want to win! I am happy to battle with Lena, Marion or Sarah-Quita when she comes to slalom events. It helps push my limits if the likes of Sarah-Quita beats me; it gives me more motivation to train. When Sarah-Quita came to Denmark it gave me a lot of pressure. She just came for one event all season, while the rest of us were doing the whole tour and fighting for the title. She was just having fun and I felt like I had much more pressure. She knows she is an awesome racer and that she could win. It was good for me even though she won the event. It made me push and sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t.

WORST MOMENT

Everything is good in windsurfing for the most part. Last year in Portugal when we were talking about men and women and equality, I was in the PWA slalom committee, and some of the guys were saying that they didn’t want to allow girls to foil race because it would be too dangerous and that we would not be able to do it. I was really insulted! This made me mad. Those guys can’t say that, we are in 2019 and with equality issues it was out of order, I was very shocked. All this part of windsurfing is what makes me feel really bad. I have several world titles and am more than capable of foiling, as are the other women. It makes me sad to still experience these opinions.

ATMOSPHERE

For sure there is screaming and shouting on the race course between the girls. We are not nice; it is like that in competition. At the gybes or the starts there are situations when you can’t be nice. What happens on the water stays on the water, and after that it is different. I am friendly with the other girls for sure. I am good friends with Marion Mortefon outside windsurfing. I think there is a good vibe between the girls, it is nice.

INJURIES

I had an injury this season from wave sailing. This was my first ever serious injury. My foot stayed in the strap and twisted. It is a very hard part of the sport to deal with. I never had this before and I did not sail for two months, which was pretty tough to deal with. It is not a good part of the sport for sure.

AMBITIONS

Probably one day we will have a family. Not now, but for sure it is one of our plans. Not at the moment, but probably soon. Trying to stay first is always a big goal for me. Most of what I do is through hard work and a lot of training. I am also thinking about the Olympics. This can be a new step for me. I don’t think I want to try wave or freestyle, this is not the step for me. Slalom and foil are the disciplines I like to do.
Like I said, I don’t know about the Olympics yet. I am thinking about it because it could be a new challenge after my titles in slalom. It’s too early to make a choice right now, but I keep this option open in my mind. For 2020 I will concentrate on the PWA tour for slalom and foil, but at the end of the season I will take time to think about what I want to do in the future.