Season Countdown

Catchup with reigning world champion Dieter Van der Eyken ahead of the new season

Dieter Van der Eyken (Starboard / Severne) has been a prominent figure on the PWA Freestyle World Tour since his debut in 2010. However, last year marked a definitive step up in performance as he began the season with a 4th place finish in Leucate, France - his best result at the time. After a great start to 2015 the Belgian produced the performance of his life in Fuerteventura as he battled back to claim a maiden event victory, which led to Van der Eyken achieving a lifelong goal and the ultimate milestone as he was crowned the 2015 PWA Freestyle World Champion. The opening event of the year begins on the 4th May in Poderdorf, Austria, so with just a few weeks to go we caught up with Dieter for an interview ahead of the new season:

PWA: Hey, Dieter, there’s just under a month to go before the start of the new season, how are you feeling about it and does the preparation feel any different being the reigning world champion?

Dieter: "I’m really looking forward to the start of the season mainly to see everybody again and see how everyone progressed over winter! I really hope we get some good winds in Podersdorf as with a lot of people it gets looked at as the light wind event of the year, but it can actually produce some really good and strong windsurfing conditions but somehow we always missed out on that in the past years sadly enough. 

The preparation does feel a bit different as everyone, including myself, feels the pressure towards this year to perform well, but I just try to keep myself calm by knowing I achieved already an amazing goal last year and just have to keep that in mind during my contests."

PWA: What have you been up to over the winter? And how has your training gone?

Dieter: "This winter I’ve actually travelled quite a bit and worked quite hard in R&D on the new Freek together with Ben Severne & Amado Vrieswijk. Besides that I also had 3 photoshoots (Cape Town, W.A. & Maui) so it's been at times a bit hectic but also an amazing experience! My season ended last year pretty late as I did the whole wave tour as well and didn’t really get back into Freestyle after Sylt until the end of November. It all started pretty well in Australia and had the feeling I was improving quite fast (picking up the shifty’s and shifty 720 quite quickly) until I hurt my foot at the end of the year, I didn’t think it was to bad at first as I was on the water again after 2 weeks but noticed Freestyle was still too painful & limited in moves I could do. I could actually only waveride mostly as this didn’t put too much pressure through my foot and I was able to improve my jumps slightly, but couldn’t improve my freestyle as I couldn’t push through any moves that included any kind of sliding almost. By the middle of February my foot finally felt strong enough to Freestyle again but being in Morocco the conditions weren’t ideal, however, I was already more than happy I didn’t have to hold back anymore! Now I’m in Sardinia for a month so hopefully I still can catch up a bit and aim to be fully ready by summer, hoping for the best in Podersdorf. 

Besides my sailing level I feel more fit than other years as I started training a lot more on the land as well and already feel the results while sailing, so I'm looking forward to improve here as well over more time."

PWA: From the videos floating around it looks like the level is going to be higher than ever… Apart from yourself, who do you expect to see pushing for the top positions?

Dieter: "I think the level in Freestyle has been going insane the last winter and everyone is pushing really hard, but two young guys in particular stand out for me. Amado Vrieswijk - who has shown everyone already he is the next star in Freestyle multiple times and gets better every time I see him sail. He makes me wonder what’s coming next! He just has to find his competition rhythm again and then he will be a very hard man to beat, especially since he's the only one out there who jumps double airculo’s in almost any kind of conditions and already lands them on both sides! 

Besides him Yentel Caers has improved so much over the past 2 years he is more than ready to challenge anyone during this year, his lack of fear and endless energy level with pure love for Freestyle windsurfing will make him one to watch out for this year and the next years. Besides them Steven [Van Broeckhoven] is ready to comeback after his injury last year and Gollito seems better after every winter he wasn’t the reigning world champion. A lot of people can take the title this year it will all come down who performs best when it count’s and makes the least errors!"

PWA: You’ve also been working on developing your own signature freestyle fin — how’s that been going and when will it be available?

Dieter: "Together with Black Project Fins I’ve got the opportunity to make my own fin for 2016 and the years following. Working together with this brand has allowed to make the best fin out there for my sailing. It has been really interesting as some prototype’s we made looked really ‘special’ but gave us exactly the right foil we needed and actually surprised me how much goes into designing a fin which is an amazing experience as well. We are still testing as we speak but are getting really close to the final design. I already have some fins I’m really happy with for the upcoming contest but hopefully will be able to release the new fin during the next month just in time for the start of the European season!"

PWA: You are also currently working on a new video project — can you tell us a little bit more about it and will it feature pure freestyle or also some wave action?

Dieter: "For 2016 I wanted to do something more than just competing, I want to push the sport more into the mainstream media and will start working together with the guys of Bern Media on new webclips called 'A Wind Driven Journey'. The market we are aiming for is people who don’t know much about windsurfing but all like a good story. Every clip will show a different spot with knowledge from the locals showing more inside information from their place for people in the windsurfing and also outside the windsurfing world. For the action shots we will try to also work with different angles and make it more interesting for people outside of the windsurfing scene rather than just having the latest new trick on tape. For the first clips the action will be purely freestyle but hopefully we can produce some clips in the future with wave action as well!"

PWA: Finally, how will you be preparing between now and the start of the season?

Dieter: "I will stay in Sardinia until the beginning of the season preparing myself here and getting used to the “colder” European conditions so I feel relaxed going into the first event. Hopefully we keep getting good conditions here like the past few days and catch up on some new moves before the first event."

PWA: Thanks, Dieter. Good luck with the rest of your preparation and see you in Austria.