How it all started

I know many stories of skiers who grew up with water-skiing due to family and friends. For me this went a little different. When I started I knew nothing and nobody in water-skiing. It’s not really a middle of the road sport, especially in the Netherlands, nobody

(myself included) really knew what I was doing. I saw a water-skiing club next to a restaurant at a lake when I just moved to Groningen, where I live now. As I mentioned before, I have lived in other places as well. In each of them I have tried different sports. In the Hague, I played hockey, which is extremely popular in the Netherlands. This wasn’t really for me though. I also learned how to snow ski when I was 4, I lived close to an indoor snow centre where I learned to snow ski to prepare for many winter holidays in the mountains. I really enjoyed this and we have a snow skiing holiday almost every year. When I moved to Scotland, I stopped hockey, but I wanted to continue snow skiing. However I wanted some change, so I decided to learn snowboarding on an artificial slope close to my home. Through school, I also joined the basketball team. I enjoyed both these sports very much and wanted to continue them both when I moved back to the Netherlands. For snowboarding I wanted to compete in slalom competitions. However we moved to the Netherlands in the summer, and the artificial slopes were not in use. In the area that I moved to there were no other alternatives either, so I had to think of a creative alternative. I thought wakeboarding would be similar to snowboarding (not really), so I wanted to find a place where I could learn this instead. I also continued basketball and took up other sports like Taekwon-do.

Next to a restaurant where we were eating, I saw a water-skiing club, called Water Ski Club Paterswoldsemeer. This was really close to my house and so I asked if they could teach me how to wakeboard. They suggested I should start with learning how to water-ski and then afterwards they would teach me how to wakeboard. It’s important to mention that even though it was summer, the water- and outside temperature must have been about 10 degrees (Celsius). After being in the water for my first few tries, I got up on my skies, however by this time I was freezing, even my lips were turning blue… The two people that taught me how to ski for the very first time, were afraid they would never see me again, because I was so cold, boy were they wrong J. I came back when it was a little warmer to learn more about water-skiing. The training opportunities for water-skiing were quite different from other sports I knew, luckily my family is used to somewhat extreme sports, as my brother does karting competitions.

Though I didn’t continue my snowboarding, or wakeboarding ideas, I did end up competing in slalom competitions, just without the snow. At the water-skiing club there was a training on Sunday morning, where I learned all three aspects of classical skiing over the years. On other days I could practice skiing, but there wouldn’t be an official trainer, which felt different to other sports, so it took some getting used to. Besides the fact that this was different for me and took some getting used to, it was also difficult to explain what I was doing to friends, because no one had heard about water-skiing as a competitive sport before. Many people saw water-skiing as a recreational sport and something that you would do with colleagues once in your life, but not every week. As I got more competitive with water-skiing, I dropped other sports to free more time for training. These were difficult decisions, some were helped by injuries or training times, but in the end it was clear I wanted to continue water-skiing instead of any of the other sports I did. There were many reasons I chose water-skiing, mainly the challenge it presented. Not only improving in the sport itself, but also finding out how to grow and how competitions worked. Since it is so unique, it also presented many hurdles, which always kept it interesting. Though it was difficult to get used to the ways of training in water-skiing, the structure of the training on Sunday morning of the water-ski club helped a lot. However there were, and still are, many things we knew nothing about, especially in the competing world.