Our Summer Heroes 2024

SUMMER HEROES

What it takes to be a champion

Inside stories from 47 exceptional athletes

The weekly podcast that unlocks the mental tactics used by extraordinary sporting personalities and shows how we can apply the same techniques in our daily lives.

AMONG OTHERS, GUESTS INCLUDE:

• Reigning F1 champion Max Verstappen

• Tennis ace Stefanos Tsitsipas

• Two-time Rugby World Cup winner Siya Kolisi

• Big-wave surfer Justine Dupont

• Medal-contending b-boy Phil Wizard

• Greatest pole vaulter in history Armand Duplantis

Tune in on any of your favorite podcast platforms:

The new podcast series.

Athleticism Competition Entertainment Fair play

Friendship Rivalry Respect

Motivation Inspiration

Courage Strength Glory

Risk Reward Heartbreak Joy

World records Personal bests

Summer Heroes Champions

Hopes Dreams Doubt Belief

Passion Performance

Perseverance Perfection

Sweat Tears Failure Resolve

Fans Podiums Applause

Trophies Medals Legends

Pain Defeat Victory Unity...

What is sport?

On the following pages you will fnd many more words to describe it, as 47 of this summer’s greatest athletes explore what the path that they’ve chosen means to them…

47 Summer Heroes

What it takes to be a champion

Mondo Duplantis

At 24, the greatest pole vaulter in history p 6

Vashti Cunningham

The 2016 world indoor high jump champion p 14

Karsten Warholm

The current 400m hurdles world champion p 18

Hayden Wilde

The 2022 Super League Triathlon champion p 24

Wout van Aert

Mutaz Barshim

The second-highest high jumper of all time p 10

Simon Ehammer

One of the world’s most versatile decathletes p 15

Larissa Iapichino

One of Italy’s all-time greatest long jumpers p 20

Sasha Zhoya

The multiversal hurdler with many winning futures p 13

Nafi Thiam

Belgium’s two-time world champion heptathlete p 16

Tom Pidcock

Considered the world's most versatile pro cyclist p 22

Olga Kharlan

A staggering six-time world sabre champion p 26

Sakura Yosozumi

Three-time cyclo-cross world champion p 30

Kieran Reilly

The men’s BMX freestyle world champion p 36

Daniel Dhers

The BMX pioneer has won every major competition p 38

The first and only female skater to win Olympic gold p 32

Kristian Blummenfelt

The fastest triathlete in Ironman history p 28

Jagger Eaton

First skater to be a street and park world champion p 34

Queens of BMX

Nikita Ducarroz, Mariana Pajón, Lara Lessmann and Saya Sakakibara are redefining their sport p 40

of the top-ranked surfers p 54

Joana Mäder and Anouk Vergé-Dépré Beach volleyball supremos p 63

Dominic Thiem

The tennis great on his toughest year ever p 64

Martin and Valent Sinković

The Croation brothers who are six-time world rowing champions p 65

Trinity Rodman

The striker who may be the future of women’s soccer p 66

Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis. At 24, he’s the greatest pole vaulter in history. In 2020, he broke his first world record. Since then, he has done it six more times

Pole

Few athletes are so good that crowds pack stadiums just to see them. Usain Bolt was one.

Mondo Duplantis is another.

Roll up for the soaring spectacle of pole vault’s greatest showman

Position

01

Mondo Duplantis

POLE VAULTER, 24, SWEDEN

Holder of the top eight vaults in history, with more 6m clearances than anyone who has ever lived.

Pole vaulter Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis laughs a lot. That’s what he does when asked if he runs through a mental checklist before one of his history-defying jumps. “No,” he replies. “My brain is on autopilot once I’m in the air. All the real work was put in long before that. And once I feel the impact of the pole in the box, I pretty much know if the jump’s going to be successful or not.”

Few world-class athletes have enjoyed a run of success like Duplantis. Since the beginning of 2020, he has broken the world record seven times, most recently soaring 6.23m at a Diamond League event in Eugene, Oregon. Along the way, the natural showman, who has represented Sweden since 2015, has won three world championships, three Diamond League season titles, and entered the exclusive 6m-high club more than 70 times. To put that into perspective, from the turn of the millennium until summer 2023, only nine vaulters exceeded 6m. And then there’s

the gold medal he brought home from Toyko in 2021. It’s unsurprising that Duplantis has been compared to another phenomenon of athletics –Usain Bolt.

It’s a long way from his youth in Lafayette, Louisiana. The son of two elite athletes – his American father was a pole vaulter who was a reserve for the 1996 US Olympic squad and his Swedish mother was a standout heptathlete and volleyball player –Mondo started messing around with a pole at the age of three and set the first of many age-group world records at seven. He has been on a tear ever since. There’s still plenty of unfinished business, however. He’s especially excited about a certain trip to Paris in July.

“In some ways, it feels like this is going to be my first time at the Games,” says Duplantis, explaining how competing during the pandemic didn’t deliver the full experience. “No one was there to watch, so it didn’t feel complete. This

MEASURING UP

Vaulting over these earthbound entities is easy for Mondo

3.7 m

A monster truck

These off-road giants are easy leaps for him

4.12 m

Glastonbury’s fence

He can enter the famous UK festival for free

4.48 m

Boban

Marjanović

and Victor Wembanyama

The NBA’s current tallest basketball players, on each other’s shoulders

5.5 m

A male giraffe

The world’s tallest animal? No sweat

6.1 m

T-rex

The king of the dinosaurs is a soar loser

time it’s going to be huge, so I have a lot of fire and motivation going into this one.”

The pole vault is certainly a curious discipline by track-and-field standards. “It’s like a circus act – a combination of several different track events into one,” he says. “You need a sprinter’s speed, gymnastics ability, kinaesthetic awareness and an aptitude for technical precision.”

Duplantis has all of these talents in spades, plus an intense work ethic and also a sort of physical restraint. These days, with an eye on his longevity, he only jumps about once a week, filling his training days with speed work and lifting, plus gymnastic and technical workouts.

When asked if he feels enormous pressure to beat his own world record, Duplantis laughs again. “I really don’t think of the next height as a world record,” he says. “I think about it as a personal best, something I’ve done so many times before, just by getting a little bit better. I try

not to make things bigger than they need to be.”

In that spirit, much of his success stems from a determination for balance in his life. He trains hard, eats clean and exudes competitive fire, but is far from being a single-minded robot.

“Mentally, I need to live my life like I’m free and not in a box,” he says, describing his passion for hip-hop and golf, as well as the joys of hanging out with his girlfriend, family and friends on two continents. He also barely counts reps and doesn’t sweat an occasional burger. But don’t be fooled by his easy-going approach to life.

“When I’m competing, something happens inside me,” he says with a sly smile. “I turn into a different person.”

He

the

world record

“My brain is on autopilot once I’m in the air”

MONDO DUPLANTIS

Duplantis at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, USA, on September 17, 2023.

set

current

of 6.23m on the same day

Watch the new documentary on Duplantis’ bid to go even higher: The Next Centimeter

02

Mutaz Barshim

HIGH JUMPER, 32, QATAR

An

UNTIL I’VE FOUND THAT “I DON’T START

How Mutaz Barshim , one of the world’s greatest high jumpers, stays hungry for more

Olympic and triple world champion, and the secondhighest jumper of all time.

Mutaz Barshim at Budapest 2023. “People who jump over 2.40 metres several times? It’s only me and Soto [Javier Sotomayor],” he says. “And how many billion people live on this Earth?”

Here is an athlete who has leapt higher than any in history bar Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor, whose 1993 outdoor record of 2.45m has held until this day. Mutaz Barshim’s personal best of 2.43m, however, remains tantalisingly close. Add to that a hat-trick of world championship gold medals to go alongside his title in Tokyo, and few competitors in any discipline have collected medals quite so prolifcally.

It’s a haul that provides an understandable sense of pride for the 32-year-old Qatari, but also brings a problem unique to precious few sportspeople. Namely, how do the best keep getting better? And, just as importantly, how can the hunger be maintained to keep achieving those incremental gains to stay at the top?

“Each year is new – you have different targets, diffcult targets, especially in my case, as I’m at that point in my career when I’ve done everything,” he says. “I’m always trying to see what’s next. What’s that one thing that’s going to keep that hunger? To keep me striving for extra? I don’t start training until I’ve found that target. I’ve got it for this year, so I’m on it again.”

“The better you are, the more difficult everything becomes”

Barshim’s life today is far removed from those early years in Doha following his father to the track. He frst tried his hand at running and the long jump – “I was nothing special,” he says –before settling on the high jump. “The high jumpers had the fun training,” he says. “Jumping on the trampolines, I wanted to try that.”

Then in 2009, a recreational basketball dunk by a 17-year-old Barshim caught the eye of coach Stanisław Szczyrba. “In 40 years, I’ve never seen such a leap,” remarked Szczyrba, who convinced Barshim he had world-champion potential. A month later, Barshim held the national record. Within two years, he was world junior champion.

“The better you are, the more difficult everything gets,” says Barshim. “I used to just train, then do a workout session or see my family. Now, I have commitments, social responsibilities. Everything is a distraction. Athletes at the top get comfortable, they have money, fame, they’re in the media. For me, it’s about still wanting to get up, put in the hard work and stay focused.

“You need the mentality to stay relevant. You must never forget how it all started.”

The feeling of nailing the perfect jump is also one that stays with you, says Barshim. It’s an addiction to excellence that no amount of silverware will erode.

“Eighty-fve per cent of the time, I know if I’m going to clear the jump before I even take off,” he says. “You have the tunnel vision, hit every spot right, every movement feels right. High jump is an art, it’s like playing the piano or strings. I can literally close my eyes and feel it.

“What’s the closest feeling to it? It’s like flying. You’re not competing against other athletes –you’re competing against the bar.”

Discover how Barshim develops resilience in the Mind, Set, Win podcast series

Barshim’s nickname is the ‘Arabian Falcon’. “Everyone’s meant to be something,” he says

Quantum leaper

Sasha Zhoya’s future has many possible outcomes.

The one he has chosen is world champion hurdler

Sasha Zhoya

HURDLER, 21, FRANCE

Holder of the under-18 and under-20 world records in 60m and 110m hurdles.

In another life, Sasha Zhoya could have been a ballet star. Or a rapper. A kung fu master. Surfer, tennis pro, hockey player, fashion infuencer… all talents he possesses. But in 2020, at 18 years of age, he withdrew from a fve-year diploma course in dance to dedicate himself to sport. A year later, at the under-20 World Athletics Championships in Nairobi, he finished the 110m hurdles in 12.72 seconds – a junior world record that thrust him onto the path of destiny.

It wasn’t Zhoya’s frst world record. He had already broken the under-18 pole vault record and U18 110m hurdles record in 2019, and the U20 60m hurdles the year afer that. Then, in 2023, at the European U23 Championships in Finland, he claimed gold and the championship record.

Zhoya credits much of his success to his foundation in ballet. “It has given me a great technical base for understanding my body and transposing movements to athletics,” he says. “While others

warm up doing leaps, I’m relaxing at the barre with classical music. It works on agility, fuidity and relaxation.”

Born in Perth, Australia, to a French mother and Zimbabwean father, Zhoya had the choice of representing one of three nations. He chose France. “Because I’m closer to my mother, part of me is more French,” he says. This has allowed him to stay closer to the action. “The European season is the biggest thing in track and feld.”

It also allows him to train at INSEP, the Parisian incubator for the sporting elite, under national athletics hero Ladji Doucouré, with whom he shares the 60m junior record.

Still only 21, and relatively small for a hurdler (1.84m), Zhoya is now competing against the big boys. And should he win this year, he’ll celebrate in all his multi-dimensional glory. “I’d like to do a lap of honour with my three fags,” he says. “I’m a man of the world.”

RED BULL CONTNET POOL, LITTLE SHAO

Falling with style

She’s one of the world’s best high jumpers. But what many people don’t realise is that Vashti Cunningham also has to be one of the world’s greatest landers

04

Vashti

Cunningham

HIGH JUMPER, 26, USA

In 2016, at the age of 18, she achieved the world’s No.1 indoor high jump of the year and became the world indoor high jump champion.

In September 2019, Vashti Cunningham cleared the 2m high-jump mark, earning her a bronze medal at the World Athletics Championships in Doha. It had been a long time coming, and she has exceeded it since, most notably with a personal best of 2.02m in 2021. The grace with which she soars over the bar gives the impression it’s effortless. The reality, though, is very different.

The strain and exertion on the body of an elite high jumper makes the sport one of the most exacting track-and-field disciplines. This is why her coach and father, former NFL great Randall Cunningham, keeps the jumping in her training to a minimum. And if you think the crash mats she lands on are large comfy cushions, think again. “They’ll bring in brand-new mats for big events, and it’s like jumping onto a rock because they’ve never been broken in,” she says.

“Every time I leave a competition I have no range of motion. I can’t look behind me. My back

and neck get so tight because you’re repeatedly landing on your neck.”

In short, it’s brutal. And dangerous, as the Cunningham family know all too well. Vashti’s brother, Randall II, is her regular training partner. But in his senior year at USC, while attempting the highest college jump in over 10 years, he snapped the tibia in his left leg.

So what makes Vashti Cunningham keep coming back for more? Simply the enjoyment of excelling at something so few others can do.

“It’s not natural like running,” she says. “It’s something you learn and treat as a process. The further along you get, the more you see that every detail counts towards your success. My favourite thing is just the fact that it’s not easy.”

Perhaps not, but having grown up in Las Vegas, she knows that without risk there’s no reward. And when it comes to the high jump, Cunningham is most certainly a high roller.

DANA SCRUGGS, GETTY IMAGES

All-round top guy

In combined sports, Simon Ehammer is a jack-of-alltrades, and the master of them all too

The Swiss are legendary for their versatility. A perfect example is the trusty Swiss Army knife – the ingenious pocket multitool first produced in 1891 – which includes everything from a blade and scissors to a corkscrew and can opener.

Another would be Simon Ehammer’s sensational performance at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow this March.

The man from Appenzellerland in the northeast of Switzerland is the living embodiment of multi-athletic brilliance. At the age of 19, Ehammer became the European under-20 champion in the decathlon – a combined event of 10 track-and-field disciplines. In 2022, he took silver in both the decathlon at the senior European Athletics Championships and the heptathlon – seven disciplines – at the World Indoor Championships. But to be a master of multi-sports means excelling at each discipline within, and Ehammer put that to the test during the heptathlon in Glasgow.

Day one of the two-day event saw him coming out of the gate strong with a win in the 60m dash. He followed that with victory in the long jump – his best single discipline, having taken bronze at the 2022 World Championships. But in the shot put event he finished eighth, and with a seventh-place standing in the high jump his lead had slipped by the beginning of day two.

A win at the 60m hurdles, however, put Ehammer back in contention. Then, victory in the pole vault soared him so far ahead of the field that he merely needed a decent finish in the 1,000m to hold on to his leading position and officially claim the title of world indoor heptathlon champion.

“I pushed and pushed because I so wanted this gold,” said Ehammer of his 1,000m performance afterwards. “This proves I am a multi-eventer. This is where I belong.”

If Simon Ehammer was an object, he would undoubtedly be the sharpest Swiss Army knife in the drawer.

05

DECATHLETE, 24, SWITZERLAND

A European under-20 decathlon champion and reigning world indoor heptathlon champion.

Ehammer lands the heptathlon long jump at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships

Simon Ehammer

Nafissatou Thiam HEPTATHLETE, 29, BELGIUM

A two-time world and Olympic champion, and one of only four women to break the 7,000-point barrier.

Greek for ‘contest of seven’ 06

WOMEN’S HEPTATHLON

An exceptional multi-event sport of seven disciplines packed across two intense days.

For most of us, multi-tasking is tough. Nafi Thiam has become a world champion at it The

For starters, she’s wearing a neon, snakepatterned dress. The spectators, also dressed resplendently, are not sitting in stands, but on seats lining the track, which is in fact a fashion runway. This is designer Virgil Abloh’s Paris Fashion Week showcase of his 2019 Spring/ 1 2

It’s September 2018 and Nafi Thiam is striding down a running track marked out with lanes. For the then world and Olympic champion, it wouldn’t appear to be an unusual situation, but all is not as it seems.

Summer collection, being modelled by Thiam. But again, this is not unusual for the athlete, UNICEF ambassador and fashion model who’s adept at combining skill sets with ease.

Thiam is a master multi-disciplinarian: the heptathlon winner at Rio 2016, London 2017, Tokyo 2020 and Oregon 2022; Belgium’s record holder; and the current holder of the heptathlon high-jump world record. She’s also the fourth woman to pass the 7,000-point barrier – the heptathlon equivalent of the four-minute mile.

It’s perhaps surprising, then, that she was nervous prior to her catwalk experience. “I was stressed that I’d fall and ruin the show,” she says. As if. Thiam’s excellence at exacting challenges even extends to the world of academia. In 2019, on the eve of the World Championships in Doha, she completed an undergraduate degree in geography. No sooner had she done that than she considered a masters in territorial planning.

That’s a lot of subjects. “Like a heptathlon,” she remarks. “Maybe that’s why I love it.”

King of hurdles

It’s how he bounces back that makes Karsten Warholm the overlord of obstacles

07

Karsten Warholm

HURDLER, 28, NORWAY

The current world and Olympic 400m hurdles champion broke the 29-year world record in July 2021. Then, a month later, he did it again.

Sprinting, hurdling, sprinting, hurdling and winning – the latter more often than not. The current world-record holder is an athlete who redefined the art of the possible by smashing through the 46-second barrier in Tokyo in August 2021, slicing more than three-quarters of a second off the previous record.

The following summer, Warholm was widely expected to add a historic third successive world championship gold to that tally, until injury struck just six weeks before the starting pistol sounded. “I knew it was not good,” he says of the moment he pulled up after just one hurdle at the Diamond League race in Rabat in June 2022. “Anybody who has pulled a muscle knows the feeling. There wouldn’t be a quick fix – at least six to eight weeks.”

It seemed to signal the end of a dream. Surely there was no way that the Norwegian – recently pictured on Instagram running around his home

track shirtless, in temperatures of -21° C, before diving headfirst into a pile of snow – would be on the start line in Oregon in the US?

Have you never met him? “Coming back is physically hard, but it’s mentally harder,” he says. “It strips away the confidence. You’re not fighting to reach your full potential, you’re fighting just to be fit, starting almost from scratch. It’s incredible how fast the fitness just falls away.”

Yet Warholm did make it to the World Athletics Championships, defying the odds and the small tear in his hamstring. But winning that third title was a huge ask, even for an athlete who has made a habit of rewriting the record books. Although he cruised into the final, it proved a hurdle too far.

“You can’t win every time; you have to give the other guys some good moments as well,” he laughs, tongue firmly in cheek. “I’d hypnotised myself into believing I could win it, even though my subconscious knew how difficult it would be. You can never give up.

“That seventh-place finish still means something. It was just six weeks from the injury and it was a risk just going to the world championships. To get into the final despite not being anywhere near my best – I am very proud of that. I didn’t re-injure myself and gave it a shot. A lot of people would have grabbed that excuse with both hands. I’m proud I didn’t.”

By the time the 2023 world championships in Budapest rolled around, normal service had resumed. Warholm won the race to claim that hat-trick of golds; his great rival – American Rai Benjamin – finished third, and 2022 champion, Brazil’s Alison dos Santos, came in fifth.

Warholm enjoys Street Fighter, and in 2019 played against the then Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg. He lost the match.

The lessons from 2022 are an experience Warholm has used to become a more complete athlete. “I’m at a good level now,” he says. “I’m not taking the stupid risks. But still, you can never safe your way to gold.”

Navigating the ups and downs – it’s what Karsten Warholm does best.

See Warholm preparing for his greatest challenge in new series Chasing Glory

SANDRO BAEBLER, GETTY IMAGES

His royal highness: Warholm during his gold-medal run at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest

Personal beast

How distance jumper

Iapichino switches on her inner monster

Athletics, as with any sport, is littered with the names of those who didn’t quite make it. Those who shone while they were young, then faded in the glare of senior competition. Larissa Iapichino isn’t one of them.

In 2021, the Italian long jumper broke the under-20 indoor world record at the age of 18. In 2023, she delivered a gold medal-winning performance at the under-23 European Athletics Championships, and achieved her country’s record for the longest indoor leap. In short, she’s here to stay.

“When you’re young, you just have fun. You let your talent break through,” she says. “It’s not your job, it’s your passion. But when you take

Leap it in the family

How Iapichino measures up to her long-jumping mother

2002 Zero metres

Larissa

Larissa Iapichino is born in Borgo San Lorenzo, Italy

that big step from junior to senior level, you need another mindset – to still have fun, but also to put in the work and focus on the details. Everything is new. You don’t know how to act around these athletes you’ve seen on TV; I didn’t know how to manage a competition that wasn’t just fun. Talent is not enough.”

Iapichino’s name has always brought a sense of expectation. She’s the daughter of Italian pole vaulter Gianni Iapichino and two-time long jump Olympic silver medallist Fiona May. That she has delivered in such style says much about her ability on and off the track. Her father is also her coach, helping her soar to distances that even she finds incredible.

“It’s much easier to jump seven metres than to realise that you’ve jumped seven metres,” she says. “Sometimes, you stand there and say to yourself, ‘How the hell have I managed to jump this far?’ It’s something that you know how to do, but you struggle to get your head around the fact. Seven metres is a long way.

“Before it’s my turn to jump, I’ll just zone out and focus on myself. I’ll think about what I need to get right. Then, I’ll try to involve the crowd. They give me this huge energy – especially a home crowd or some random Italians. Italians are loud! The adrenaline comes up and I get into beast mode.”

Jumpers of the world beware.

2019

6.58m

Aged 17, she wins the European U20 Championships. Her mother won the same event in 1987, also aged 17

2021

6.91m

Achieves a junior world record and matches her mother’s senior indoor record from 1998

08

2023

6.97m

Sets a new personal best at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul 2014

Larissa Iapichino LONG JUMPER, 21, ITALY

Currently ranked second in the alltime list of Italian long jumpers.

“I train hard enough that racing becomes easier”

TOM PIDCOCK

Visions of victory

When cycling superstar Tom Pidcock wins a race, it’s neither a surprise nor a relief. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy

Tom Pidcock is known for celebrating by throwing his sunglasses into the crowd, once losing what he called his “lucky red glasses”. Ahead of the 2023 Tour de France, SunGod released these limited-edition Tom Pidcock Signature Series Velans. But with all 300 selling out, Pidcock can’t afford to lose his own pair.

09

Tom Pidcock

CYCLIST, 24, UK

An extraordinary cyclist across three disciplines – road racing, mountain biking and cyclo-cross.

“When I have the feeling that I’m going to win, 90 per cent of the time I win,” says Tom Pidcock. He must get that feeling quite a lot. We’re talking about a multi-disciplinary cycling phenomenon who took gold in the Olympic cross-country mountain bike race in 2021, came frst in the Cyclo-cross World Championships and Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France in 2022, and triumphed in cross-country at the 2023 Mountain Bike World Championships.

“It’s like an instinct,” says the man who grew up honing his bike skills riding around the trails, roads and hills of Yorkshire, and now lives and trains in mountainous Andorra. “I imagine it in my head, I see myself doing it. I know it’s going to happen.”

Pidcock’s unerring self-belief stems not from arrogance, but from the earned confdence of an athlete whose insatiable desire to win motivates him to push his body to the limit, performing brutal fve-hour training rides to arrive at the start line in winning form. “I enjoy training hard enough that the racing becomes easier,” he says. “I sacrifice a lot. Every meal is for a reason. Everything that I do is for a reason. But when you complete a hard session, it’s done. You ride home and can sit down all afernoon. That’s one of the best feelings.”

His potent inner vision perhaps explains how Pidcock boldly fuses skill sets to excel on- and of-road. If he can one day add the road-race world title to his championship haul, he would be the frst man to achieve that hat-trick. “I want to do things nobody has done,” he says. “The idea of a legacy is big for me.”

So, if his rivals see him smiling on the start line this summer, they should be afraid.

BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, JB LIAUTARD

Hayden Wilde TRIATHLETE, 26, NEW ZEALAND

The 2022 Super League Triathlon Championship Series winner, and an Olympic and Commonwealth Games medallist.

Watch the new documentary on Wilde’s sporting journey: Hayden Wilde: Determined for Greatness

Call of the Wilde 10

A late starter to triathlon, Hayden Wilde has become one of the sport’s first to finish

Multi-tasking

Wilde’s three-point guide to triathlon

THE START

“You’ve got incredible swimmers on that pontoon – they aren’t nervous at all. I need a good laugh. I find a mate to have a yarn with. You just want a good position coming out of the water. Finishing near the back is a shocker.”

THE TRANSITION

“The longer you dry, the harder it is to get that wetsuit off. As pro athletes, we’re lucky enough to have sponsors supplying us, so sometimes we’re just ripping it off. All you want is to get cracking on the bike.”

THE SPRINT

“Some people are great runners, but combined with the bike they just don’t have the legs. I’m pretty decent off the bike. My 10k pace usually gets me near the front. Then it’s tactical – do you surge for 200m to shake people off?”

Hayden Wilde would greet any suggestion that he’s anything other than “a normal person” –who just happens to be exceptional at one of the toughest sports on the planet – with a wry smile. Hell, he wasn’t even aware his sport existed until he approached the end of high school.

“I didn’t know what triathlon was,” he says of his academic years in Whakatāne, New Zealand. “I wasn’t one of those kids who spent time on the ‘try tris’.” Instead, he grew up on a diet of football, hockey and fitness running. “I really only made the transfer [to triathlon] in 2016, after watching the Games in Rio.”

It proved a wise move. Although quick enough to qualify for the 5,000m run in Tokyo, Wilde wasn’t picked up by Athletics New Zealand. Entering the triathlon instead, he scooped bronze. A year later, he took the crown in the Super League Triathlon Championship Series and silver at the Commonwealth Games.

Not bad for an athlete who started out selffunded and admits to borrowing a friend’s bike for the first three years of competition. Now he wants to offer something to new generations of Kiwi triathletes.

“As I never started when I was a kid, I had to funnel myself into the high-performance New Zealand programme,” he says. “It’d be cool to help people who were in my situation get a foot in the door.”

He’s also hoping his family can finally come to see him on the international stage this summer. “The only time they get to watch me is in domestic racing,” he admits. “My goal was never to get rich from the sport, but to make sure my family were financially sound and could hopefully come to Europe to watch me race.”

One thing’s for sure – Hayden Wilde has found his calling.

“I didn’t know what triathlon was. I only made the transfer after watching the Rio Games”

HAYDEN WILDE

Olga Kharlan is a sabre queen who honed her skills on the dance floor

The glare of the public eye is nothing new to Olga Kharlan, the Ukrainian fencer who has been at the top of her sport for over a decade. However, appearing on her nation’s version of Dancingwith the Stars in 2021 was something else entirely.

“Competing in fencing and being in front of the cameras are two totally different things,” she says. “In fencing, you can’t see my face, I don’t have to worry about what my wrists are doing, about my posture. On the dance floor I’m unmasked – it was three of the toughest months of my life.”

Growing up learning the cha-cha and tango, Kharlan could have become a professional dancer, but the cost of lessons proved too much. Then, at age 10, she was offered free fencing coaching. “The rhythm of an opponent is similar to that of music, of a partner,” she notes. “Sometimes you see dancing moves in fencing.”

It proved a balletic career move. Since the age of 18, Kharlan has won the World Fencing Championships six times and the European Championships eight times. She also claimed team gold at the 2008 Olympics, and has been ranked No.1 in the world five times.

In Dancing with the Stars, she finished as runner-up to actor Artur Logay. “I was unlucky – he had an amazing dance partner,” she laughs, but insists that her sharpness with the sabre proved invaluable. “Sport has given me a lot in terms of coping with tough moments. Not just physically but also mentally – I’m a fighter.

“I was being asked to dance in heels, which was painful as hell. It works a different group of muscles. I also had three million people watching me on TV. It did take over my life.”

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Olga Kharlan

FENCER, 33, UKRAINE

Two-time world sabre team champion, four-time individual world sabre champion and four-time Olympic medallist.

In 2020, Mattel produced a one-of-a-kind Barbie of Kharlan as part of its ‘Role Models’ series celebrating famous women. Kharlan sold the unique doll in a charity auction for US$10,400.

06:44:25

That’s the fastest ever Ironman-distance time, a record set by Kristian Blummenfelt . But it’s not the finish, he says. It’s all about the journey...

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Kristian

TRIATHLETE, 30, NORWAY

The first person to achieve a subseven-hour Ironmandistance triathlon.

Achieving a perfect performance at a major event is tough. To nail three, back to back, in one day seems extraordinary. But that’s what Kristian Blummenfelt did in Tokyo in 2021, when he won a gruelling endurance race that requires 1.5km of swimming, 40km of cycling and a 10km run, taking Norway’s first Olympic gold medal in the triathlon event.

He then celebrated in extraordinary fashion by announcing that the following summer he’d attempt to win the Ironman World Championship – a triathlon more than four times longer. He did.

“That was the most insane race I’ve ever done,” Blummenfelt said of completing the 3.9km swim, 180.2km bike ride and 42.2km marathon in seven hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds. He became the first man to simultaneously hold the World Ironman and Olympic titles, and the first in 26 years to win the former on the first go. In Germany a month later, Blummenfelt achieved another world-first – finishing an Ironman-distance triathlon in under seven hours. Or more precisely, in six hours, 44 minutes and 25 seconds.

Surely, returning to the standard triathlon was a walk/swim/ride in the park after that? Not so. “The intensity is brutally high – you need to find another gear,” says Blummenfelt. “You feel like you could do another lap once you’ve crossed

the finish line, but all that matters is who crosses it after the 10k run. It doesn’t matter how much energy you have left. That’s what we’ve been doing since the latter part of 2022 – trying to change the energy system again, so I can beat the young athletes.”

Blummenfelt is 30. His nearest rivals – Great Britain’s Alex Yee and New Zealander Hayden Wilde – are both 26. In the Japanese capital, the trio finished within 20 seconds of each other. All three will be looking to peak again this summer, but the workload required to achieve that is almost a sport in itself.

“At the top level, the volume on the run is probably about 80 per cent of what a normal runner would do,” says Blummenfelt. “You’re in the pool six times a week – not far off what a professional swimmer does. The decaffeinated morning swim just feels awful.”

But his win in the Japanese capital – one he’d prepared 10 years for – remains a standout performance in athletics. “I felt sure I had the race when I did my final session on the bike the night before,” he says. “It was more a feeling of relief than happiness when it happened.

“But, for me, it’s so important to enjoy the training. It’s not just about the race, it’s about having great joy on the journey.”

Blummenfelt

NUMBER CRUNCHING

Some Blummen impressive stats

8,000

The calories he burns in a daily workout

2,000

The US-dollar cost per bottle of a special water he drinks containing an isotope that tracks his calorie burn

1,300

Hours spent training per year

50

He uses Spotify’s Top 50 to motivate his workout sessions

30

The minutes listening to one tune on repeat when he hits his training groove

13

Wout van Aert

CYCLIST,

29,

BELGIUM

A road and cyclocross champion, considered one of the most complete cyclists of his generation.

Wout van Aert is a cyclist of singular brilliance, in two bike sports

It’s the final day of the 2016 UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Belgium. Wout van Aert is closing in on the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel when the latter suddenly dismounts to navigate an obstacle and puts his foot through the front spokes of Van Aert’s bike. This situation could go one of two ways – but Van Aert thrives in moments of double jeopardy.

An under-23 world champion at 19, Wout van Aert was born to excel at cyclo-cross – a brutal multi-terrain cycle race where riders often need to carry their bikes over mud and tree roots. Becoming world champion consecutively from 2016 to 2018, Van Aert’s destiny seemed set.

So, he switched gears and took up road racing.

What has followed is more than 30 professional road-race wins, including the Milan -San Remo and Strade Bianche in 2020, and nine stage victories at the Tour de France. He’s only the third Tour de France rider in its 120-year history to win a time trial, mountain stage and sprint stage – a staggering display of his versatility.

“I’ve never thought it impossible,” he says of his career shift. “A lot of people don’t try because they think they can’t. I never limit myself.”

As for that 2016 situation with Van der Poel? Naturally, Van Aert won the race, and the world championship. Twice the triumph.

Test your cycling savvy with this biking brain teaser

Across

1 The type of looping course in cyclo-cross

2 The main group of riders in a bike race

3 The path of the Tour de France from start to finish

4 The part of Van Aert’s bike that Van der Poel got tangled in

5 What Van der Poel did to get in that tangle

Down

1 Jersey awarded to a Tour de France race leader

2 The 2024 Tour de France is 3,492 of these

3 A technique used to clear obstacles in cyclo-cross

4 The French word for a Tour de France stage

5 What a cyclist wears when riding

“I never limit myself”

WOUT VAN AERT

GIANFRANCO TRIPODO

SKATEBOARDER, 22, JAPAN

The 2018 park skateboarding world champion and the first female skater to win Olympic gold. SUMMER HEROES

Brewing up a storm

To propel skater Sakura Yosozumi to the world stage required a generous dash of a local saké ...

At just 22 years old, Sakura Yosozumi has already established herself as an iconic figure in the world of competitive skateboarding.

Despite starting her journey on the board only a decade ago, this Japanese skater has already clinched nearly every title the sport has to offer. In 2018, just five years after picking up her first deck, Yosozumi seized gold at both the World Skateboarding Championships in Nanjing and the Asian Games in Jakarta. In the years since, she has continued her winning streak, securing gold medals at the inaugural park skate competition at the Olympic Games in Tokyo and the 2022 X Games in Chiba.

Skateboarding might be the main focus of Yosozumi’s life today, but back when she first started practising the sport in her hometown of Wakayama, finding time and space to ride was a struggle for the teenager. After her older brother got her into the pursuit when she was just 11 years old, Yosozumi would travel long distances to skateparks in the nearby cities of Mie, Osaka and Kobe to skate after school and on weekends, often riding and perfecting tricks for up to five hours.

Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit, and travel became impossible. Hearing that the young skater was left without a space to ride, a local saké brewery, Yoshimura Hideo Shoten, reached out

and gave Yosozumi a lifeline, offering a section of its warehouse as a private practice space. In just two months, bowl-shaped slopes were built inside and it was renovated into a new facility named Sakura Park.

Over the next few years, within her personal playground, Yosozumi dedicated thousands of hours to honing her craft. She mastered all facets of transition skating – including the immensely difficult skills needed to traverse the vertical halfpipe – and became one of the few female skaters in the world to perfect the 540 (a trick where the skater and board spin one and a half rotations in mid-air).

The company brews saké with water that flows from the Kiyokawa River. Little did the brewery know that its gesture of altruism would result in a flood of medals for Yosozumi.

“I wouldn’t have perfected my skills without the park,” Yosozumi says. “I’m so grateful to the brewery.” If things go the way she hopes this summer, Yosozumi already has the perfect venue to host a celebration.

See Yosozumi practising the 540 at her private skatepark ahead of the last Olympics

The comeback kid

Having scored an Olympic bronze with only one working ankle, imagine what Jagger Eaton could do with two

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Jagger Eaton

SKATER, 23, USA

The first skater in the sport’s history to win the world title in both street (2021) and park (2023) skating.

Jagger Eaton’s favourite skateboard trick? “The kick flip,” he says, fairly conclusively. Not to dispute the opinion of one of the world’s greatest skateboarders – who rode his first deck in his parents’ garage in Mesa, Arizona, at age four, and became an X Games competitor at 11 (at the time the youngest entrant in the competition’s history) – but we suspect there’s another trick he has enjoyed even more. Let’s call it the ‘18o-degree injury-to-Olympics against-all-odds flip’. Because that was a move for the ages.

Six months before the Tokyo Games in 2021, Eaton’s prospects were not looking good – his left ankle was badly sprained, with 90 per cent of the ligaments torn, as he travelled to Des Moines, Iowa, for a park-skating qualifier. That he managed to finish fifth was a minor miracle, but it still wasn’t enough to earn him the coveted ticket.

Where some might have succumbed to common sense, Eaton instead dragged his ankle

to Rome for one final shot, this time in street skating. “I’m an athlete who puts a lot of pressure on myself,” he says. “We talked in Iowa about how bad my ankle was and missing out on park. Then I broke my ankle in Rome…”

Come again? At this point, Eaton must have wondered whether he’d inadvertently smashed a mirror or run over a black cat.

What happened next is the stuff of skateboard legend. Qualifying in Rome despite that broken ankle, he took bronze in Tokyo a month later, becoming the first athlete in the sport’s history to win a skateboard medal at the Games.

This summer, Eaton intends to win in both categories. This would be a feat even more impressive considering nobody even competed at both events in Tokyo. But, as the reigning world champion in street and the 2021 world champion in park, he certainly has the chops to do it. Providing both ankles are in working order, it may become his favourite trick of all.

The delivery man

“Someone must have said it somewhere,” the BMX freestyle world champion laughs of the urban myth doing the rounds. “I’m sorry to ruin a good story, but it’s not true. However, if you did order from Deliveroo and I was on duty, you’d get it a lot faster than if someone else delivered it.”

To be fair, Kieran Reilly is better at serving up feasts of a different kind, such as his fabled triple flair. That one, however, wouldn’t get him five stars for a rapid delivery.

It was January 2022 when Reilly pulled off this world-first trick at Asylum Skatepark in Nottinghamshire, UK, launching off the top of an extended quarter-pipe and performing three full

backflips before adding a 180-degree rotation. It took countless attempts, and the bruises to prove it. “I thought it would be like going from a single flair to a double,” he says. “But it wasn’t. I was just relieved I didn’t have to get beaten up trying to land it anymore.”

Not that he’s shy of hard knocks. Reilly is now a fan of HYROX – a high-intensity interval fitness race mixing 1km runs with workouts such as sandbag lunges and sled pushes.

“It has helped me massively,” he says. “I can now do significantly more in a 60-second competition than I could before.” Look out for that HYROX-inspired quadruple flair...

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FREESTYLE BMX, 22, UK

In August 2023, this gravity-defying BMX prodigy became the men‘s BMX freestyle world champion.

Kieran Reilly

Kieran Reilly wants to make one thing clear –he has never been a Deliveroo rider

Building your bike

Reilly’s guide to the perfect ride

TOOL UP, BUT DON’T GO CRAZY

“I started off with a massive bag of tools, but generally you get the same problems, and as my bikes have gotten better they all have the same-sized bolts. So now I just carry three –two Allen keys and a chain tool.”

KEEP YOUR WEIGHT DOWN

“Riding a BMX is like a workout. Throwing those few extra kilos of bike around over the course of 60 seconds might not sound like much, but trust me, if you’re doing a trick in the last 10 seconds, it already feels pretty heavy. It’s important to keep the bike as light as possible.”

DON’T FOLLOW YOUR HEART

“I can still remember my first bike – a rusty-framed Mongoose with green parts on it. I got it for Christmas and loved it, but when I think about it now, I wonder how it got manufactured in the first place. Quality is important. When it comes to BMX, it’s a case of buy right or buy twice.”

YOUR BIKE WILL NEED REPAIRING. GET OVER IT

“Pulling off a new trick is what made me fall in love with riding. You’re not thinking about the work; those 50 crashes that it takes to nail a trick never feel like a chore. I haven’t found anything to match that feeling. But it comes at a cost – your bike will need constant work. Just accept it.”

Building your body

Reilly’s freestyle ftness tips

IT’S A STATE OF MIND

“If you’re a BMX rider, you’re an athlete. That took me a little while to realise. Now I love training. I take the same mindset that I have on my bike into the gym. Basically, every workout you do makes a difference to your performance on the bike.”

DON’T GET STALE

“If I was to go into the gym every day and do bike sprints, I’d be bored senseless. It’s about keeping it fresh and trying new stuff to keep yourself intrigued and motivated. You should always be up for discovering new things.”

ASSAULT YOUR SENSES

“If I had to choose one piece of gym equipment, it’s the assault bike. When I’m on that – wow, it’s so gassy. It’s no fun at the time, but it’s an amazing bit of kit. You’re still on a bike, still pedalling, but moving your arms backwards and forwards too. It’s an all-over workout that probably helps me more than any other.”

CRASH-PROOF YOUR BODY

“I’ve crashed throughout my career. It’s part of the job. As a kid, you bounce a bit more, you’re more agile. But the more time you spend in the gym, the more you improve your agility, fitness and motion. Those factors help when you inevitably smash yourself up.”

The Boss

The word ‘legend’ is often overused. But when it comes to Daniel Dhers , it’s an understatement

Listen to the Mind, Set, Win podcast to learn how Dhers prepares for life’s “unexpected banana peels”

“Winning once is easy. Winning for a long time? Not so much.” These words come from lived experience. At 39, Daniel Dhers has stayed at the top of freestyle BMX for over two decades, winning five X Games golds, an Olympic silver and a world championship. It’s no surprise his nickname is ‘The Boss’. Since 2006, Dhers has led the way, inventing and reimagining tricks. He was one of the first to drill consistency – hitting a quarter pipe hundreds of times in a row. Not even breaking his lower back in 2003 could deter him. It all came from riding the streets of Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, aged 12. “It was dangerous for a kid, with crime and traffic,” he recalls. His parents were so disapproving they chained his bike to a truck. Today, with his Action Sports Complex in North Carolina, Dhers helps a new generation. Nikita Ducarroz (see below) lived and trained there during lockdown. She won bronze in Tokyo, aged 24. Dhers took silver. He was 36. In 2024 he plans to retire, but not before one last hurrah. “In Venezuela, we say: ‘Old dogs bark lying down.’ That’s what I do now. I train calm, but I go out there like the devil is chasing me.”

17

Daniel Dhers

FREESTYLE BMX, 39, VENEZUELA A BMX pioneer who has won every major competition this century.

“Daniel showed me the ropes. He pushed me off with riding, but also with the business side, buying a house and how to be smart with my money.”

NIKITA DUCARROZ 27, Swiss BMX park gold medallist at the 2021 European Championships

“I want to be really good at competitions and tricks. Daniel has proved he’s one of the best; I want to prove that too.”

JAKA REMEC 19, Slovenian BMX freestyler

Chain reaction

How Daniel Dhers is inspiring the next generation of BMXers

“I’ve got big respect for Daniel. How old is he?

But he’s still crazy!”

BORA ALTINTAŞ 23, Turkish BMX street pro-rider

“When I was nine, I met BMX legend Daniel Dhers and took a picture with him. Ten years later, he gave me my own Red Bull helmet. I showed him the picture and he was shocked. When I was young, I never thought that something like this could happen –meeting Daniel and now being his friend.”

LARA LESSMANN

24, German BMX park gold-medal winner at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games

“Daniel impresses me the most. He’s a really good guy and seeing him at his age, he’s amazing –he’s riding like he’s 20.”

GEORGE NTAVOUTIAN 25, Greek BMX pro

A new generation of BMX athletes are redefining what’s possible on two wheels, and this time women are at the head of the pack. Here are four riders leading the charge ...

18

FREESTYLE

BMX riders are known for putting their bodies on the line and pushing through injuries, but in 2021, Lara Lessmann took this to the next level. Six weeks before the Olympics, the two-time UCI World Cup winner crashed at the Urban Cycling World Championships in Montpellier, France, breaking her collarbone and needing immediate surgery. Most people ruled her out for the rest of the year, but two weeks later she was back on the bike. Come Tokyo, Lessmann not only competed, but placed sixth. “For me, BMX riding is more than a freestyle sport,” she says. “It‘s my passion and my life.“

19

Mariana Pajón

BMX RACER, 32, COLOMBIA

If you‘re searching for a world expert in BMX, look no further than Mariana Pajón. She stands as the most decorated female BMXer in the sport‘s history. Pajón, a two-time Olympic gold medallist, entered her first competition at age five and became a world champion by nine. Her achievements speak volumes: 18 world championships, three Olympic medals and three times the overall winner of the BMX Supercross World Cup. While Pajón continues to pursue titles, she’s also a staunch and passionate advocate for the next generation of young women entering the sport. “The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams,“ she says.

Lara Lessmann

BMX, 24, GERMANY

20

Nikita Ducarroz

21

Saya Sakakibara

BMX RACER, 24, AUSTRALIA

FREESTYLE BMX, 27, SWITZERLAND

For Nikita Ducarroz, BMX isn‘t just a sport, it‘s how she tackled anxiety and transformed her life. The 27-year-old – who has openly discussed her struggles with mental health – first took up BMX at the age of 13 and discovered the solo sport helped her confront her anxiety issues head-on. By the time she’d turned 19, BMX had become her career, and at the age of 24 she won an Olympic medal. Over the past few years, Ducarroz has emerged a powerful advocate for mental health and launched the Mind Tricks platform to provide support to others in action sports. “It‘s a topic often shy away from discussing,” she says. anything I can do to make it easier for me and for other people is something worth pursuing.“

BMX racing is a heart-pounding, nerve-wracking blend of speed and agility that’s as much about mental strength as it is physical prowess. It‘s no wonder that most riders admit to feeling a degree of pre-race trepidation, and Saya Sakakibara has more reason to be apprehensive than most. The Australian rider’s older brother, BMX racer Kai Sakakibara, was injured in a competition crash in 2020, suffering a serious injury that ended his riding career. Only months later, Saya herself crashed at the Tokyo Olympics, sustaining serious concussion. While most riders might have considered stepping away from the bike, she persevered. With the eyes of the world on her, Sakakibara returned in 2023 to win the final of the UCI BMX Racing World Cup in Argentina.

BREAKING INTO SPORT

How did a style of street dance rise to the pinnacle of sport?

Every breaker has a different story…

Clockwise from top left: B-Girl Logistx; B-Boy Victor in New York ahead of the 2022 BC One World Final, which he won; Alien Ness at Rock Steady Crew’s anniversary celebration in New York, 2003; Alien Ness two decades later in NYC; Menno in Paris, 2023; El Niño in his hometown of Boston in 2022; Menno on home turf in Rotterdam in 2021; B-Boy Victor. Previous page: Logistx in New York City, 2022

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El Niño

BREAKER, 33, USA

Alex Diaz invented the cannonball head spin and is president of the Floor Lords crew. As winner of Lords of the Floor in 2002 and BC

One North America in 2010, he bridges the golden age and new schools of breaking.

23

B-Girl Logistx

BREAKER, 20, USA

The youngest member of the Underground Flow crew, San Diegan former gymnast Logan Edra certified her ascent into breaking’s current generation with victory at the 2021 Red Bull BC One World Final.

Breaking began on the block.

24

Menno

BREAKER, 35, THE NETHERLANDS

Considered one of the greatest dancers in competitive breaking history, Menno van Gorp is a three-time winner of the Red Bull BC One World Final. He owns Rotterdam breaking studio OTB.

Specifically, the South Bronx in New York City in the mid-’70s. On slabs of concrete and at park jams, crews of Adidas-clad b-boys dazzled with head spins and power moves. A pillar of hip-hop’s four elements – alongside DJing, MCing and graffiti – it took the world by storm, enshrined in movies and the closing ceremony of the 1984 LA Olympics. A decade later, it almost seemed a passing fad. But breaking was undergoing a metamorphosis. Apostolic crews refined their moves and set up a standardised scoring system that laid the foundation for the art to become a legitimate sport. This is how breaking got here, as told by some of the scene’s biggest players.

25

B-Boy Victor

BREAKER, 29, USA

Victor Montalvo is one of the most dominant b-boys of all-time –a two-time Red Bull BC One champion who has taken the sport to the masses, even teaching Mario Lopez breaking on Access Hollywood

26

Alien Ness

BREAKER, 57, USA

President of the Mighty Zulu Kings, Luis Martinez is a legend from early ‘80s South Bronx. He has worked with Run-DMC and The Fat Boys, and featured in movies

The Last Dragon and Krush Groove

My frst breaking experience

El Niño: I was fve when I saw my uncles doing windmills and turtle freezes in my grandma’s living room. I never knew you could manipulate your body with such control. From there, it was an everyday thing. I won my frst battle at eight. There’s a picture where I’m holding a trophy bigger than me.

Menno: I frst saw it in a Run-DMC video, but in person it was via my cousins in the early 2000s. I discovered a thing where you can really express creativity and build a strong network. It had a lot of freedom.

Logistx: I saw it on TV show America’s Best Dance Crew. I was eight and had been doing hip-hop dance, but when I saw kids spinning on their heads, I knew I wanted to break.

Victor: I was six, watching [1984 movie] Beat Street with my cousin and older brother. My dad and uncle told us they used to do that back in the day. We were like: “You’re lying.” Then they started doing backspins and headspins in front of us. From then on, we’d watch the movie on repeat, copying all the moves and acting like we were in battles.

Alien Ness: It was 1980, I was 12, and a cousin showed it to me. I was terrifed to do it – we were very poor and if my mom saw me shufing on the foor in my good clothes, we had problems. Two years later, a couple of guys on my block, who were notorious stick-up artists, were doing it. I asked my cousin to teach me and discovered I was a natural.

The scene when I started out

El Niño: Being from Boston, we had to go to cyphers and parties in New York to grasp the culture more. This was 1998, prior to the competition era, before cash prizes – I was winning camcorders and trophies. It wasn’t about the prizes, though, but bragging rights and respect.

Logistx: I started tournaments in 2011, at eight years old. Back then it was about community, the exchange of energy and conversations through dance. It was for fun, but I felt so powerful doing basic things, and I wasn’t even that good yet.

Victor: For my frst three years, my cousin and I would battle kids at teen night parties. I didn’t know there was a scene in Florida, let alone the world. It was only afer meeting an event organiser that we discovered how much more there was.

Alien Ness: I was a third-generation b-boy. Breaking was inescapable then. It was on TV, in music videos and Fruity Pebbles [breakfast cereal] commercials. It was local too – the goal was ghetto celebrity status – and it was dangerous, especially if you were beating the locals in other neighbourhoods. There were many stories of b-boys getting beat up and chased to the nearest train station.

Menno: In the Netherlands, we were behind Germany and France. A guy from one of the frst crews in my hometown organised a trip to Battle of the Year in Germany. We went, bought all the video tapes, and circulated them around our city. That’s how we got our information.

My most memorable moment

El Niño: Winning Lords of the Floor [in 2002] at age 11. I didn’t know it at the time, but it solidifed my legend in the breaking world – it’s the moment everyone saw. Anyone who has a kid that breaks, they show them that footage.

Logistx: Winning Silverback Open in 2018. My life changed. I’d been in a dark period, but afer I won I got signed to Red Bull and that kicked of my career.

Menno: For me, it was going to some of the frst Notorious IBE events in Holland [in the late 1990s]. Being there as a child and having seen the video tapes, it was unforgettable.

Victor: The feeling I got going to my frst real breaking event. I witnessed something that I never knew was so deep. It was exciting and humbling, because you think you’re so good until you see others who are better.

Alien Ness: Being in the NYC Breakers in the ’80s and headlining with LL Cool J. Getting down and performing with the Rock Steady Crew. I remember every battle I’ve ever had. Battling is what I do. If a b-boy isn’t battling, he’s not a b-boy. He’s not digging into the essence of the dance.

How the scene has changed

El Niño: In the ’90s, there weren’t as many competitions; now there’s one almost every weekend. There’s less mystique because battles are immediately archived on YouTube. Before, you’d hear through word-of-mouth: “This b-boy got at this b-boy and it was the best battle of the night.” You were lef with just this thought.

Victor: You can tell it’s more focused on the competition now because everyone seems stressed and doesn’t look like they’re having fun in the moment. I try to keep that fun aspect in mind and remember why I’m doing it.

Alien Ness: When I was young, you entered a contest – not a competition – and were lucky if you got a slice of pizza and a soda. Back then, 18 was the cut-of – if you were over that age and breaking, you were immature. Now, you get cats coming home and paying rent and providing for their family. It has changed for the better.

Logistx: We now get paid to do what we love. Dancers are ofen considered the bottom of the hierarchy in entertainment, and breakers are bottom of that. I’m grateful for Red Bull treating us like athletes. We deserve to be compensated for the risks we’re taking with our bodies.

What is breaking?

El Niño: It’s a part of hip-hop culture, but there has always been a sports aspect. As time progressed, the competition has become more important, but so has the need for us to preserve an art form connected to hip-hop’s four elements.

Victor: It’s an art form but it can be a sport – it’s super competitive. But ultimately, it’s about the music, the community, the soul, vibes, and bringing your own character and creativity into the dance. You become your own superhero.

Alien Ness: The minute that people started using tournamentstyle brackets, they made it a sport. Do I think it’s a sport? No. But swimming isn’t a sport, it’s a way to keep from drowning. Karate isn’t a sport, it’s a martial art used for self-defence. What’s most valuable about breaking is the knowledge of self that comes with it.

The future

Alien Ness: Back in 2005, I predicted breaking would be an Olympic sport. I’m for it 100 per cent. I have students from all over the world. I want to see them on a box of Wheaties. I want to go to Foot Locker and buy the Air Whatever with one of my student’s names on it. I want to see them get an Olympic gold medal – there’s no prize more prestigious. I think that one day they’ll be as well-known and respected as basketball stars. El Niño: We need to evolve into the next phase – acting and being treated like athletes. We all know athleticism is a huge part of being a breaker, and now we’re learning how athletes take care of their bodies, how they eat and work with trainers. Some people have said that sport will dilute the culture, but it’s great to have more opportunities for people to make a name for themselves. Without it, they may never have had the chance to make a living from sponsorships. I’ve been through four diferent eras and seen a lot of change, but what doesn’t change is the love for breaking.

Victor: It’s OK that people still want to keep it underground – not everyone has to go the sports route. But I want to expose breaking to a diferent audience and help it to earn that respect. It’s exciting to share that art and that feeling.

Logistx: I have a feeling we’re going to create our own league. I see the power in all of us and I believe that we can.

Guess the breaking moves

FERARAIL MILDWILN LUTTER TROOPCK CHERIOPLET SHADIPEN

“I’ve been through four different eras and seen a lot of change, but what hasn’t changed is the love for breaking”

Diaz, aka El Niño: “I

windmill-

Flow of consciousness

Phil Wizard is one of the most creative breakers alive Here’s how he keeps his head when all around is spinning

Phil Wizard admits that he had trouble staying focused on lessons at school. He would ofen fnd excuses to leave the classroom to bust out headspins, freezes and fares in the echoey corridors. “Nothing else grabbed my attention in quite the same way as breaking,” he says. Fortunately for the kid who grew up to become one of the world’s best breakers, that proved to be his perfect vocation.

It all began on the streets of his hometown of Vancouver in 2009, when the 12-year-old Philip Kim (Wizard’s real name) witnessed local hip-hop crew Now or Never running their slick moves. One of them became his frst breaking teacher. “In the beginning, having my own crew and mentors was vital,” he reflects. His own b-boy name came from the frst crew he joined: The Wizards.

Since then, the physical maestro – known for his creative fair and efortless, explosive power moves – has gone on to win Red Bull BC One cyphers in Canada and LA. He also became the

Undisputed World B-Boy Masters winner in 2018; and in 2022, Wizard joined the Red Bull BC One All Stars – a crew of some of the planet’s best breakers. Then he took top spot at the 2023 Pan American Games in Chile, which also secured him a place in Paris this summer.

So, with his new-found fame, does he still have trouble staying focused? “Social media is a huge part of any athlete’s work these days,” says Wizard, who has more than 70,000 followers on Instagram. “The more online presence you have, the more opportunities there are. But it’s not great for my mental health.” So he takes enforced tech breaks. “In the run-up to a big event, I’ll delete the socials from my phone.”

This ultra-disciplined approach frees up about 25 hours a week for training. “I get into a meditative state before each competition. It’s about trying to stay present in the moment.”

At this moment, Wizard has never been more present. He sums it up with a simple philosophy: “I stay ready, so I don’t have to get ready.”

27 Phil Wizard BREAKER, 27, CANADA The Red Bull BC One All Star is one of the highest ranked breakers in the world.

Wizarding whirl: Phil Kim ahead of the BC One World Final in Paris last October

CHRIS SAUNDERS, LITTLE SHAO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Barrels of love

For Australian surfer Jack Robinson , the ocean isn‘t just a playground, it‘s a sacred place that demands protection

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Jack Robinson

SURFER, 26, AUSTRALIA

The two-time Australian Surfer of the Year is considered one of today’s best barrel riders.

Few sports can match the aesthetics of surfng. Indeed, it’s so eternally stunning that six-time World Surf League Championship Tour event winner Jack Robinson admits that, for him, just seeing someone ride a wave can be as enjoyable as riding one himself.

“On a surf trip, when you watch your friends in a free session, you get just as much joy,” says the two-time Australian Surfer of the Year, who also has four WSL Qualifying Series wins to his name. “You’re so happy just sitting there in the ocean, watching someone else look completely at ease in the water. It’s beautiful.”

Heralding from Perth in Western Australia, Robinson rode his frst board at age three. In 2013, as a 15-year-old grom, he turned his eye to the competitive side of surfng, entering the Oakley Bali Pro as a wildcard on the Championship Tour. From the outset, he was known for his seemingly supernatural understanding of the waters around him, sensing the tides and swells better than any of his competitors.

“When you get out there, the world suddenly becomes a pretty simple place,” he says. “It’s just you, your board and the ocean. Connected with nature, you’re taken back to the frst time you set foot in the water. You forget everything else.” Considering the sea is pretty much his second home, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Robinson is committed to preserving this unique habitat for those who follow him.

“As surfers, we’re passionate about that. We try to take care of the ocean – you have to be a protector of it. The ocean gives so much; it’s a life giver. You’re just sharing it.”

In a year packed with competitions, Robinson doesn’t have as much downtime to free surf as he’d like. But his relentless schedule is made more palatable by the fact that he’s competing against people he’d just as happily hang with.

“We’re all pretty good friends out of the water,” he says. “There’s always a sense that we’re here to have fun too. You have to try to bring that freesurf mentality to competition.”

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Winner of the 2019 Australian Pro Junior series at 17, Picklum is one of her nation’s most exciting surfers. After coming first at Hurley Pro Sunset Beach in 2023 and 2024, Picklum went on to become the first woman in history to score a perfect 10 at Banzai Pipeline.

“This moment that you’re in right now, right here, is classic yin and yang – a balance of make it happen, let it come. The reason and the rhyme. The balance of the engineered and the mystical...”

Actor Matthew McConaughey is talking to which surfer?

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“She just owned her own story and did her own thing on and off court – stuck with whatever she felt was right, no matter the external factors. She’s been my inspiration for a long time.”

Which surfer is inspired by tennis player Ash Barty?

Who is my secret surfing guru

Turn the page to fnd out!

Growing up in California to Japanese surfer parents, he was the youngest person to win the US under-18s National Championships at 14, the youngest rookie on the men’s Championship Tour at 18, and is a transcendent star in Japan – the nation he represents.

? ?

? ?

Three pro surfers. Three famous spirit guides. But can you tell who is inspired by who?

“They have a different type of confidence. It’s a confidence outside of their sport, of not worrying about people’s opinions. It’s a confidence in being who they are, unapologetically.”

Which surfer is talking about basketball legend LeBron James?

Colapinto went viral in 2016, pulling off a skate-inspired airreverse to win a stacked heat.

In 2017, he claimed the Triple Crown of Surfing and qualified for his first WSL Championship Tour, scoring a perfect 10 in the first event. In 2023, he finished third in the world.

31 Griffin Colapinto SURFER, 25, USA

Kanoa Igarashi SURFER, 26, JAPAN

Molly Picklum SURFER, 21, AUSTRALIA

This is my secret surfing guru!

The surfers and their mystery motivators revealed!

Actor Matthew McConaughey is Griffin Colapinto’s shaman

Tennis pro Ash Barty is Molly Picklum ’s ace in the hole

When Picklum isn’t on the WSL tour circuit, she enjoys a round of golf with fellow Aussie and three-time Grand Slam tennis winner Ash Barty. “She sweeps the floor with me,” Picklum told the Sydney Morning Herald in 2023. “Ash is such a legend. She’s inspired me a lot.” Such is Picklum’s admiration for the 2021 Wimbledon winner, she competed on International Women’s Day in 2023 wearing a shirt with Barty’s name emblazoned on the back. “She hung them up at her house,” says Picklum. “It was a pinch-yourself moment.”

NBA star LeBron James is Kanoa Igarashi ’s life coach

Last year, Colapinto revealed he’d been giving McConaughey’s son Levi surf tips. The Interstellar actor wanted to pay him back in kind. On the eve of a Championship Tour final where Colapinto could win the title, McConaughey posted an Instagram speech to him: “It is no accident that you’re here. Hell, you called your shot a long time ago. These heights that you’re on: it’s where you belong on the way to where you’re going. Remember how you got here, look this moment in the eye and own it. The roof is a man-made thing, Griff, and you have no lid.”

Ahead of the Olympics in 2021, Igarashi discovered he’d be staying close to the surf competition in Chiba rather than the athletes’ village in Tokyo, an hour and a half’s drive away. “They want to give the surfers an exemption to practise and compete more easily,” he told Stab magazine in a 2019 interview. “I said, ‘No, I want to stay in Tokyo. I’ll get a helicopter to Chiba every single morning. I want the full experience – the fans, the excitement, being around all these other great athletes.’ That’s what LeBron would do. I can strive for it.”

Braving the wave

Surfing world champion

Caroline Marks isn’t afraid to admit that the sea sometimes scares her

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Caroline Marks

SURFER, 22, USA

The reigning World Surf League champion.

The best surfers make the sport look so efortless you’d be forgiven for thinking they were fearless in the water. But the 2023 World Surf League champion, Caroline Marks, wants to let you in on a secret – that’s certainly not always the case. “I get scared all the time, for sure,” she admitted in a recent interview with People magazine. “Obviously, the reef is scary, sharks are scary, and getting held underwater is not fun at all. I just tell myself, ‘OK, I’ve got this, and I’ve trained hard for this.’ Really just believing in myself – I think that has helped me to get over those fears.”

That self-belief is based on solid foundations. The 22-year-old Florida-born athlete has been at one with the water from the moment she was old enough to frst enter the ocean. In 2017, she made history before even competing for her frst world title, when, at 15 years old, she became the youngest surfer in the sport’s history to

qualify for its most elite competition, the WSL Championship Tour.

In 2023, six years afer that remarkable frst season, Marks cemented her place in the history books by beating five-time world champion Carissa Moore and reigning eight-time champion Stephanie Gilmore to achieve a lifelong goal and take the world title – the frst goofy rider (where the lef foot is planted at the back of the board) to do so in almost two decades.

This summer, Marks is ready to face her fears once again, and conquer one specifc wave –Teahupo’o in Tahiti. The odds are in her favour, as the surf spot famously favours goofy riders as it barrels in from the lef.

“Teahupo’o is every goofy footer’s dream,” Marks says of riding the world’s heaviest wave. “Such a beautiful yet terrifying reef, and it’s just so cool to paddle out somewhere that has the potential to deliver the wave of your life.”

The world’s heaviest wave

Riding this titanic tube is a pilgrimage for the greatest surfers, but Teahupo’o represents something else to Kauli Vaast – home

No place like home: Kauli Vaast riding the fabled local wave at Teahupo’o

The village of Teahupo’o on the southern coast of Tahiti is a place of pure tranquillity. But its blacksand beaches, formed by the watchful volcano of Tahiti-Iti, hold a secret. Depending on who you ask, Teahupo’o translates from Polynesian as “Wall of Skulls”, “End of the Road” or even “Scraped Head”. All sound ominous, but also very apt. Because here you will bear witness to one of the most awe-inspiring waves in the world.

Breaking far from the beach and below sea level, it sports a thundering barrel with a lip ofen as thick as the wave itself, which can rise up to 7m high. As the swell breaks, it sucks in the water from the shallow reef in front, exposing sharp coral just metres below the surface. It’s not a ride for the faint of heart – or skill – and since the mid1980s has drawn some of the world’s bravest surfers, seeking to challenge the planet’s heaviest wave. Many have lef with scars they will carry for the rest of their lives. They are the fortunate ones. But long before these surfers arrived, the local community had always understood the power of Teahupo’o.

One of the most successful Polynesian surfers on the international scene, Kauli Vaast was born in Vaira’o, just outside Teahupo’o. Since childhood, the wave has been his playground, and later a place of competition for him on the WSL tour. As he and the world’s surfng elite prepare to gather here this summer for the biggest competition the island has ever seen, Vaast gives us an insight into the local surf culture, his respect for the ocean, and the unique energy he feels as he rides within the eye of this mighty vortex.

The wave itself can rise up to seven metres high

If you’re visiting Teahupo’o, there are a few things you should know. First, surfers pronounce it as ‘chop-pu’, or know it by its nickname, ‘Chopes’. But Teahupo’o is actually the name of the land. The reef break is locally known as ‘Pererure’, meaning ‘spinning top’.

The name ‘End of the Road’ is apt. Teahupo’o is where all paved roads end. At its centre is a footbridge over a river; on the other side are dirt tracks. Although the wave can reach up to 7m tall, it can also be gentle, as Kauli Vaast (pictured top left, left and below) recalls: “The first time I went out, it was two-foot [0.7m] and perfect. So fun!”

Vaast has a tip for new tourists: “First, go to the shop and buy some plastic tias [flat sandals]. Take these and go to a restaurant or caravan and order raw fish [pictured far left] with coconut milk and rice. That’s when the sick trip begins.”

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Kauli Vaast

SURFER, 22, FRENCH POLYNESIA

Born and raised in Tahiti, the threetime WSL European junior champion was ranked No.5 in the world by the International Surfing Association in 2023.

Discover more about the culture, history and wave of Teahupo’o in this episode of No Contest: Off Tour

“You don’t play with Teahupo’o, you show him respect. There’s this energy you feel here, we call it ’ Mana ’“

KAULI VAAST

“

Surfng is a reality here. In Polynesia and at home in Tahiti, plenty of people surf. Kids start out on the wave in front of their house. That’s how I got into surfng at the age of four. If you don’t surf, you fnd another hobby in the water, you’ll be good at gliding in a diferent way.

There are only a few Polynesian surfers on the pro circuit at the moment – Michel Bourez [2016 Pipe Masters champion], Vahiné Fierro [2017 WSL Junior World Champion] and Mihimana Braye [considered one of Tahiti’s best]. At the age of 13, I started travelling outside for competitions, supported by my frst sponsor. For a Polynesian surfer, it’s hard to leave the core; you really have to stick with it.

Our wave is Teahupo’o, and you don’t get there overnight. You have to be ready and have the right feeling; it has to be spontaneous and natural. I was eight when I surfed it for the frst time. I was with my family and my father encouraged me. I had in mind the words of Tahitian surfing legend Raimana van Bastolaer [known locally as ‘Teahupo’o’s godfather’], who always told me, “Go for it, do not be afraid.”

The sooner you observe the spot, the better you understand it. The more you go out there, the more you become attuned to it. You have to spend a lot of time in the water and learn to read the ocean. Even afer all these years, it’s scary to go out there and see that wave.

You don’t play with Teahupo’o, you show him respect. There’s this energy that you feel here, we call it ‘Mana’. This energy is present in the spot and in everything you do.

All around, you have the ‘mountain of skulls’, which gave Teahupo’o its name. In ancient times, two tribes clashed here, and the victors erected a wall of skulls that marked the boundary of the village of Teahupo’o.

You won’t fnd this kind of legend around any other surf location. The wave is so beautiful, so authentic and powerful. It’s a pleasure to surf here: the translucent water, these colours, the sunset when you’re in the tube with people in boats so close to the action.

It’s a perfect wave, but be careful, it’s also very dangerous. At Teahupo’o, it’s shallow and you must avoid brushing against this reef. Before jumping in, I ‘listen to the sea’, and sometimes I don’t go in if I don’t feel like it. Some people take their chances, but with my competition programme I can’t aford to.

A lot of my mates have broken their boards or, worse, hurt themselves – got knocked on the head or wound up in hospital. I balance chance in my favour with specifc training, learning to control shocks and improving my breathing underwater.

I also go underwater fshing. I’ve learned when and where to fnd a particular fsh. I can also fsh when I’m surfng, but for that I have my secret technique [laughs]. Fishing is part of my relationship with the ocean. A real surfer respects the ocean and gets to know it.

I’m lucky enough to ride one of the best waves in the world, in one of the most beautiful places, with this channel, this reef, all these fsh. We have to preserve this heritage so that nothing changes. Here, we are all attached to it. The Polynesian people are one big family.

The shape of water

The secret of Teahupo’o’s power

The swell builds days away. About 5km from shore, the ocean floor is 1.5km deep, but by 0.5km away it has reduced to just 300m deep. The swell doesn’t feel the sea floor until 0.8km away, the energy marching near unimpeded into the reef, where it’s hurled forwards, sucking in the reef water. The lip pitches with such velocity that anyone not riding the tube will experience one of the heaviest wipeouts on Earth. Incoming swell

Lagoon Reef 1m deep 1.5m 3m 6m 9m

Water is pulled off the reef

Wave face is three times higher than the back

Energy is pushed up as it hits the reef

Wave energy approaching reef

DEAR SURFING

As graceful with words as she is with waves, Carissa Moore penned a love letter to surfing. It was also a goodbye...

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Carissa Moore SURFER, 31, USA

A five-time world champion, in 2021 Moore became the first surfer in history to win a world and Olympic title in the same year.

Surfing’s story is filled with eras, from Hawaii’s Duke Kahanamoku bringing the sport to worldwide attention in the early 20th century to the advent of pro surfing in the 1970s. But the past 14 years have undoubtedly been the era of Carissa Moore.

In 2010, she joined what would become the World Surf League (WSL) and was world champion within a year. This was a feat she repeated four more times; most recently in 2021, the same year she won gold in Tokyo as the first ethnic Hawaiian surfer to appear at the Games since Kahanamoku in 1924 (he did so as a swimmer). Then, on January 19 this year, Moore announced a closure to her era of competitive surfing.

“This is by no means the end. Surfing is a part of who I am, and it always will be,” she posted on Instagram alongside the ode to the ocean shared on the opposite page.

What Moore does next will surely be as amazing as what came before. Part of it will involve Moore Aloha, her charity formed in 2018 to help girls and women find positivity and purpose. It was born from her own candid struggles with mental health. “I don’t know how this is gonna play out,” she says. “I’m a work in progress, figuring it out as I go.”

Meanwhile, she has one last competition left, perhaps the greatest of all – defending her gold in Paris. She also has one person to thank: the man who introduced her to the waves at the age of four.

“Dad, I don’t know if this was all a part of your master plan, but thank you, truly, for everything.”

Watch Moore going through memories of her life and career in this episode of In Plain Sight

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my journey. Well, I guess, our journey together.

A swell has been building on the horizon for a while now. And I feel compelled to follow it and to follow you. To step away from the tour and to see who we are outside of the jersey.

A push, a glide… that’s where it all started. You lifted me up. And in that moment I fell in love. If I think about it, you really taught me to dream. Big dreams, filled with purpose and possibility. You pushed me to dig deep, to never settle and to find a way through. You showed me how to win and exceed all expectation.

There’s also been heartbreak, defeat, but you taught me to never be defeated, keep rising and to try again. To trust in myself on my fears and my insecurities. To never stop believing. You taught me that joy lives beyond the accolades, beyond the titles. It lives in the people, in friends, in family, the smiles, the love and the journey.

And now our journey continues together.

Crossing into the unknown is scary, but you’ve taught me that’s where the real magic happens. I can feel the butterflies, but I’m excited to pile over the ledge, to let go of the rails and enjoy the ride. A lesson that you taught me.

Dear surfing, you’ve been my greatest mentor. Thank you for the dream, for the adventure, and the endless pursuit.”

Gods of thunder

Viking volleyballers

Anders Mol and Christian Sørum are taking the world by storm

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Anders Mol

BEACH

VOLLEYBALLER, 26, NORWAY

Ranked top in the world with partner Christian Sørum.

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Christian Sørum

BEACH

VOLLEYBALLER, 28, NORWAY

Considered the best defensive player in the world.

Haukland Beach, Norway, September 2020. Mol serves during a game with Sørum against Latvia’s Janis Smedins and Aleksandrs Samoilovs

“When you hear the words ‘beach volleyball’, you don’t think about Norway,” says Anders Mol. And yet, despite growing up closer to the Arctic Circle than Copacabana, Mol and his fellow Norwegian Christian Sørum are currently the best beach volleyball pairing in the world.

The duo have had such an impact on the sport that the village of Strandvik, where Mol lives, has almost become a shrine to their excellence. “We don’t have beaches here, but we have six beach volleyball courts – we had to make them,” says Mol of this small homestead with a population of about 500. “We’re trying to get one court for each inhabitant.”

Becoming poster boys for Norwegian beach volleyball is a destiny that even they didn’t see coming. “I met Anders when we were at school,” says Sørum. “He was a short, skinny boy, two years younger than me, who had passion and good technique for volleyball. We shared the same mindset, were put together for a youth tournament, beat some of the best teams and finished fifth. Then we realised – actually, this could be something amazing.”

That they were correct is a credit to both themselves and the extraordinary education they received. ToppVolley high school is one of global sport’s best-kept secrets. Looking out over a breathtaking fjord on Norway’s jawdropping west coast, this academy of volleyball excellence is punching well above its weight, with its intake of just 75 pupils combining academic study with a sport that Norway has fallen in love with.

“You eat, you go to school, you train – that’s it,” says Mol. “Everything is within a 200m radius. It’s a perfect setup for not losing time.”

As it turned out, playing in a sports hall at ToppVolley wasn’t so far removed from the pairing’s first Olympics, which took place inside an empty stadium in the Japanese capital in the summer of 2021.

“It was super strange, especially in the first match we played,” says Sørum. “You could hear every sound, every clap, everything. It felt like a practice at times. We beat Australia in the final set, but it was only afterwards that you realised just how big this was.”

Just the two of us

For Joana Mäder and Anouk

Vergé-Dépré, being top beach volleyballers is like a marriage. In sickness and in health...

A global volleyballing phenomenon with partner Joana Mäder. 38

Alongside exceptional volleyball, she likes to play the saxophone.

The odd couple: Mäder and Vergé-Dépré at the Gstaad Beach Pro in Switzerland, July 2023

“We’re not super-close friends,” says Joana Mäder of her relationship with teammate Anouk Vergé-Dépré. It’s a revelatory admission from half of one of the most successful beach volleyball pairings in the world. However, as the second European women’s team ever to earn an Olympic medal – claiming bronze at Tokyo 2020 – and with five Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour medals together, it’s evident theirs is a relationship that works, even if they don’t call each other for long chats off-season.

Relying on someone else to help achieve your goals demands faith and compromise. When the pair came together in 2017, Vergé-Dépré had to switch positions to make their partnership work.

“We both played blocker before,” she says. “Joana is taller, so that’s how we decided who would change. Transitioning is hard; you lose the things you do intuitively on the court.”

They also learned what it was like when they didn’t have each other. In 2022, during the bronze medal match at the Beach Volleyball World Championships in Rome, Mäder dislocated her shoulder, missing not only the podium that day but also all competitions over the following 10 months. Vergé-Dépré had to wait on the sidelines for her partner to heal, while making sporadic competitive appearances to preserve the pair’s seeding. “I had to trust the process,” says Mäder. “You have to take small steps if you want to be back really fast.”

While overcoming that difficult period has strengthened their bond and mutual respect, it appears that they still have trying moments.

“We’re getting in the car and she’ll say, ‘I haven’t got my phone,’” says Mäder. “I’ll say, ‘I’m sure you’ve got it on you.’ And she’ll ask me to call it. It will literally be in her pocket.”

LORENZ RICHARD/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Break point

Dominic Thiem excels on hard courts. Now he faces the hardest court of all – that of his own personal expectation

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Dominic Thiem

TENNIS PLAYER, 30, AUSTRIA

One of the most consistent high performers in tennis. From 2016 to 2020, only Thiem and Rafael Nadal finished in the world top 10 every year.

Tennis is a game of rallies. Of riding through the rough stretches and turning the tide when the moment demands. Dominic Thiem understands that better than anyone. Winner of 17 ATP Tour singles titles since his 2011 professional debut, Thiem took the 2020 US Open title after coming back from two sets down – a year when he ranked No.3 in the world.

Then a wrist injury forced him to miss the majority of the 2021 season. “In 2022, I finished 100th; in 2023 as 98,” Thiem remarked at the beginning of this year. “I see 2024 as a last chance. If I can do it, it can be done quickly.”

At 30, time and talent are on his side. Just ask US legend Jimmy Connors, who retired at 43 with the most singles title wins in modern

tennis. “Why wouldn’t you grind it out to get back to where you were?” he said of Thiem on his Advantage Connors podcast. “Look at what Djokovic, Nadal, Federer accomplished – guys playing well into their mid to late 30s.”

In his career, Thiem has beaten all three of those icons. And his story is still being written. “I never did this for the money,” he says. “I’m chasing the feeling to play tennis the way I can. The way I demand of myself.”

These are the words by which a true champion is measured. Not by the victories or the plaudits, but by how they respond when they’re two sets down. Thiem is renowned for his powerful groundstroke return. Brace yourself for the most powerful return of all.

Brothers in arms

No sibling rivalry here.

Martin and Valent Sinković are in the same boat together, conquering the world

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Valent Sinković

ROWER, 35, CROATIA

A six-time world and seven-time European champion with his rowing-partner brother Martin. The pair are also double Olympic gold medallists.

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Martin Sinković

ROWER, 34, CROATIA

Alongside sharing triumphs with Valent, he’s the 6,000m world record holder on an indoor rower.

Like most brothers, the Sinkovićs tend to row with each other. Not in the quarrelling sense –the kind with oars. And they may be the greatest rowing partnership the world has ever seen.

First introduced to the sport by their elder brother Matija, Valent and his younger brother by 15 months, Martin, soon discovered that blood is slicker than water, especially when it came to racing against others.

Starting with quadruple sculls (four rowers per boat, two oars each), they became 2010 world champions before switching to double sculls (two rowers, four oars) in 2014 and winning the World Rowing Championships. In qualifying, they became the first pair to row 2km in under six minutes – a record that stands to this day.

After that, they turned to coxless pairs (one oar each) and dominated that category, winning the 2018 and 2019 world championships.

“It’s a special bond,” says Martin. “We never get angry with each other, and we understand ourselves so well. Sometimes we don’t need to tell each other anything, because we know exactly what the other one is thinking.”

Surprisingly, while harmoniously attuned in the water, the awesome oarsmen drift in opposite directions on dry land. “Valent is relaxed, I’m more introverted,” says Martin. “He plays cards before a race, I stay in and watch a film.”

But, adds Martin, the familial bond overcomes all. “It’s special when you cross that finish line and turn around to see your brother in the boat.”

“I couldn’t accept that people could play a sport just for fun,” says Trinity Rodman, who, let’s be clear, is definitely having fun

SCORE DRAW

Authoring her own destiny

In 2022, Rodman penned a children’s book, Wake Up and Kick It, “to inspire the next generation to go out and achieve their goals and dreams,” she says. It was shared with youth charities by the US Soccer Foundation, and Lionel Messi also received a copy. Perhaps it inspired him to join Inter Miami.

To be called the future of women’s soccer is a heavy burden, but Trinity Rodman is more than up to the challenge

Trinity Rodman’s life is one of goals, and this began at an early age. “She started playing soccer at four,” recalls her mother, Michelle Moyer. “She’d come off the field almost in tears asking, ‘Mom, why isn’t everyone else trying to win?’” It was a sign of things to come.

At 10, Rodman joined prestigious Los Angeles youth team SoCal Blues, winning four championships. At 13, she began playing with the national youth team. Then in 2021, aged 18, she joined the Washington Spirit –the youngest player ever drafted into the US National Women’s Soccer League.

She ended the season as the team’s secondhighest goal scorer. That year, she earned the NWSL’s Rookie of the Year and US Soccer Young Female Player of the Year awards. A place on the US team at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World

Cup followed. During a friendly match less than two weeks before the tournament, she scored two goals within 11 minutes – the youngest player to score a brace in the team’s history –securing a 2-0 win.

“She has the quality to be something this planet hasn’t seen in women’s soccer,” says former Washington Spirit coach Marc Parsons. That’s quite a weight of expectation, but, as Trinity is the daughter of NBA legend Dennis Rodman, it’s also something she became accustomed to long ago.

Fortunately, Trinity Rodman’s personal goals extend far beyond the pitch. “I want to bring the best energy to the people who are around me while still being true to myself,” she says. “I need to be carefree. I play my best when I’m not overthinking.”

42 Trinity Rodman

SOCCER PLAYER, 21, USA

Striker for the Washington Spirit and the US women’s national team, and the youngest player ever drafted into the US National Women’s Soccer League.

Keep it in the family

Injury can sometimes be the end of a sportsperson’s career. In the case of Jessica Fox , it started one

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The most successful canoeist in world championship history.

Jessica Fox was born into paddling royalty. Her British father, Richard Fox, is a 10-time canoe slalom world champion; her French mother, Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, has claimed the title eight times. “Even in Marseille, where I grew up, my grandfather was the president of the local kayak club. I was always around the sport,” says Jessica, whose destiny, it seemed, was to follow their path. Except, she didn’t want to.

“As I kid, I remember not wanting to be like my parents, not wanting to do any kayaking,” she says. When she was four, her parents moved to Penrith in Australia, so her father could coach the national slalom team. There, she focused on other pursuits. “I was keen on swimming, netball, soccer and gymnastics,” she says. It would be the latter that set her on the path to destiny.

“I broke my arm when I was 12,” she recalls of a

trampoline fip gone awry. “The physio said paddling would be good rehab. Getting on the rapids and making friends got me into it.”

At 18, Fox won silver at London 2012. She took bronze in Rio four years later, and gold and bronze in Tokyo four years afer that. She remembers someone coming up to her at the 2018 Canoe Slalom World Championships: “They told me, ‘You just overtook your mum as the most successful female paddler of all-time.’” With 14 gold medals at world championships – 10 in individual events – she’s now the most successful paddler, male or female, in competition history.

Every athlete needs a starting break. Fox’s might have come somewhat differently, but today she accepts her place at the top of a sporting dynasty. “It’s pretty cool that it stays in the family,” she says, laughing.

Jessica Fox SLALOM CANOEIST, 29, AUSTRALIA

Natural high

Climbing phenomenon

Oriane Bertone has two objectives: to get to the top and to enjoy getting there

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Oriane Bertone

CLIMBER, 19, FRANCE World bouldering vice-champion and youngest person to master an 8B+ climb.

She may have grown up surrounded by the volcanic landscape of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, but Oriane Bertone wasn’t always destined to be a climber.

“My dad was a sports teacher and top-level judoka,” she says. “From the age of six, I followed him by taking up combat sports – practising judo, but wrestling above all.” But at age eight, the walls fnally called. “I have no precise memory of the sensations I experienced. I just know that I got so hooked on it that I stopped wrestling.”

Afer that, her ascent, both literally and fguratively, was rapid. In 2018, aged 12, Bertone became the youngest person to ever complete an elite 8B+ boulder problem. Four years later, she took bronze in bouldering at the European championships in Munich; then last year, silver at the world championships in Bern, Switzerland.

But while her career has soared, her ambitions remain higher still. “I haven’t yet reached the level that I want,” she states. “I hope to progress even further in 2024, then 2025, 2026 … The next few years are going to involve a lot of willpower, sufering and sacrifce. I’m too focused on that to think about anything else.”

The life of a pro climber is ofen like that: years of hard work and training – mostly indoors, in Bertone’s case. But she knows there’s a world of opportunities waiting for her. “The trips, big clifs and flm shoots will come. I’m still young. I’m going to keep training to be the best in the world.”

But make no mistake, Oriane Bertone isn’t here just to sufer. “I love climbing. I don’t regret for a single second having put everything aside for it. Succeeding on this path I’ve chosen for myself puts a smile on my face every day.”

MATTEO CHALLE, BASTIEN SEON/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Giving every inch

Janja Garnbret fully commits to being the GOAT of climbing, even when injury leaves her hanging

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Janja Garnbret

CLIMBER, 25, SLOVENIA

One of the greatest competition climbers of all time and the first woman climber to win Olympic gold.

A broken toe isn’t a pleasant thing for anyone, but it’s unlikely to be game changing. For Janja Garnbret, however, it can be catastrophic – the diference between winning or losing a world championship, or qualifying for the Olympics.

We’re talking about a competition climber who, since the age of 16, has won 41 world cups and eight world championships, earning more IFSC gold medals than any climber in history. She also took gold in combined climbing (lead, speed and bouldering) at the 2020 Olympics. So, when Garnbret fractured her lef big toe while climbing in February 2023, it was, indeed, game changing.

“Four weeks without a climbing shoe on the lef side is a big deal,” she said of what was, incredibly,

the frst injury of her career. “I cried a lot in those frst two weeks.” What she didn’t do was take a break. Instead, Garnbret trained her upper body and practised climbing using only one of her feet, or neither of them. “I had to learn how to trust my body again.”

Six months later, in Bern, Switzerland, Garnbret became bouldering world champion again, afer fawlessly topping the rankings at every stage. At the same time, she qualifed for the Olympics. “The old quote, ‘Come back stronger’, sounded so clichéd until I experienced it myself,” she said aferwards. “Thank you, climbing. You’re challenging, but I appreciate everything you have given me.”

Higher purpose

For Alberto Ginés López , winning gold in Tokyo wasn’t easy. But finding his mojo after that success was harder still

When Alberto Ginés López stood at the base of Switzerland’s Verzasca Dam for the 2023 edition of Red Bull Dual Ascent, the young climber faced a markedly diferent challenge than his fellow competitors. Whereas most contestants at the head-to-head multi-pitch climbing competition were simply aiming for a medal, López sought something more: a new dream to aim for.

Two years earlier, in the summer of 2021, López had achieved his life goal at 18 – winning gold in the world’s frst men’s Olympic sports climbing event. To say he was an underdog would be an understatement. Despite topping the speed climbing, he came last in the bouldering. With the lead climbing category still to come, he faced the best in the world – Adam Ondra.

The fnal day went in López’s favour, but as his moment of triumph was beamed around the

world, he stood there, blinking. “I wasn’t sure if I’d won, so I didn’t want to make a fool of myself,” he told Spanish newspaper El País. In the afermath, López was lef with an existential question – what do you aim for once your lifetime dream has been achieved? “There was emptiness for a few months,” he admits, such that he sought therapy to rediscover his motivation.

The answer eventually came – to get out of his own head and back into competitive climbing. At Verzasca, López did just that, scaling with climbing partner Jenya Kazbekova all the way to the fnal. In the very last inches of that race against Slovenian siblings Jernej and Julija Kruder, López and Kazbekova dramatically lost. They lef without a trophy, but López gained something more valuable – a new feeling that maybe there’s more to be achieved afer all.

46 Alberto Ginés López CLIMBER, 21, SPAIN Runner-up in the 2019 Climbing World Championships and the world’s first Olympic climbing gold medallist.

The enigma machine

Every bouldering wall starts with a puzzle. Natalia Grossman has become a master at solving them

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Natalia Grossman CLIMBER, 22, USA

The world’s No.1 sports boulderer and a world champion at the age of 20.

“I sometimes look at a wall and think, ‘I’ve no idea how I’m going to get up there.’” This is not something you expect to hear from the world’s topranked boulderer. But the discipline of sports climbing ofers a unique challenge to Natalia Grossman – one that’s as much about puzzle solving and mental agility as it is physical endurance and strength. In competition, climbers don’t know the problem they’re going to face until they get to see the wall.

“You have an initial instinct and then work from there,” she says. “A lot comes from experience.” And her experience of solving climbing problems started at the age of four.

“We lived really close to a climbing gym,” she recalls of growing up in Santa Cruz, California. “I’d walk past it with my parents and you had to be six to climb there. My parents were like, ‘If you still remember [in a couple of years], we can come back.’” She remembered.

Grossman has rapidly navigated the complex conundrums of the climbing world. When she turned 14, her family moved to the aptly named Boulder in Colorado, so she could train with American climbing legend Robyn ErbesfeldRaboutou. Since then, the puzzle pieces have fallen into place – Grossman has taken 19 podiums at world cup events, including nine golds. She has been the overall Climbing World Cup champion for the past three years, and won the Climbing World Championships in Moscow in 2021.

As for the literal problem of facing an unknown wall? “In the fnal round, you get a preview and just six minutes to plan your route – probably 50 moves,” she explains. “You can talk with your competitors and discuss plans. You share ideas. Generally, everyone gets on.

“At the end of the day, though, it’s you against that wall. And once you’re on it, there’s no one else to help you.”

Not a problem.

WATCH AND LEARN

“The best way of getting up that wall is by watching others climb and talking to them about what works. You have to appreciate their techniques to understand how to conquer that wall.”

SKETCH IT OUT

“Each problem will be different. I find drawing my route is helpful for reminding myself what I plan to do.”

BE FORENSIC

“Look for clues. You can’t use chalk [for grip] in competition, but you can still see thumb prints on the wall. You’ll think, ‘This is probably the right way up.’”

HANDY HINT

“There’s no substitute for preparation. I warm-up my fingers with resistance bands to improve their strength.”

SCHOOL OF ROCK

Be top of the class with Miss Grossman’s elevation education

Watch Reel Rock episode Smile and fight following Grossman as she trained to defend her 2021 Climbing World Cup title

Finish line

Join the dots to discover the summer’s freshest sport

Unscramble the word to reveal the sport’s name:

GREBANIK

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