Hey Yentel, congratulations again on winning your second world title - how does this one compare to the first in 2019?
It feels so, so good. This one perhaps feels even better than the first because I also won on Fuerte earlier this year. It's always been an event I've dreamed of winning. Over the years, I've often come close, but in the end I've always finished second or third without ever winning it. That's why I was over the moon to win in Fuerte and top the rankings ahead of Sylt. But it's often difficult here because you never know what to expect. This year we were so lucky with the conditions. We finally had really good freestyle conditions, which makes everything better.
You were drawn against Lennart Neubauer in the single elimination and he knocked you out early, so you still had a long way to go to get back to the top - did you ever think that your chance of winning the title this year was over?
That's difficult to say. The thing is: If you want to win and become world champion, you have to be able to win against anyone. Of course, facing Lennart so early made things more difficult. I think he proved that was the toughest draw you could get when he won the event. I have a lot of respect for him and it's great to see a young man climbing the ladder.
Then, in the double elimination, I knew it would be a long way back. It felt like it was out of my hands because we didn't know what conditions we were going to face. There could just as easily have been waveriding on Monday and we'd still be on stand-by, but luckily we had perfect freestyle conditions. It was a long way back, I have nine heats in the double - one on Sunday and eight on Monday - but it's fine as it's only 8-minute heats.
Does it make you proud that you are the only driver to have broken the 40-point barrier - not just once, but several times ...
I don't know, I just felt really good yesterday in these conditions. It suited me very well that there wasn't too much jumping. I love the real freestyle moves like the shifties and the double power moves, while some others prefer the wave jump moves. Yesterday was the perfect conditions for me to show what I can do. I had a really strong run against Dieter [Van der Eyken] at the start - 42.1 points - and after that I had the confidence that I could do it. So I just tried to drive all my heats the same way and it worked.
As things went on and you got closer and closer to the top 5 and the title, did you start to feel pressure?
Of course I was aware that I was getting close to the top 5 and the world title, but I wasn't looking at the points. So I really had no idea what position I needed to get back into to become world champion. I just knew that if I beat [Adrien] Bosson, I was guaranteed to win. But that was a long way off at the start of the day, so I was honestly just trying to think from heat to heat. I didn't even check which riders I would be up against. I just focussed on myself and luckily it went really well.
You really rode a lot of heats that day. Did you feel tired towards the end?
I was fine. I think after becoming world champion the stress eased and you could see that on the water as I was a little less explosive than at the start of the day. The wind also dropped a bit and I made a few mistakes against Lennart, but I have a lot of respect for him, he sailed incredibly well.
How are you celebrating your second world championship title?
The celebrations started on Monday evening. I have all my friends here, so we went out to celebrate with all the freestylers. Freestyle is over, but we still have almost a week here, so I'm going to enjoy my holiday on Sylt and just try to enjoy my time.
