The Netherlands’ Zara Hoogenraad won her first Qatar Airways GKA Big Air TwinTip World Championship in Gran Canaria, in July. After a surprise exit at the opening event of the 2025 Big Air season in Jericoacoara, Brazil, she told Ian MacKinnon of the elation the world title brought her and how consulting a therapist had helped her get there. Even the loss in Brazil she turned into a positive, helping the returning Mika Sol to her win. Ahead of a reunion with her much-loved dog, Dice, and competing in the inaugural Red Bed Bull King of the Air women’s divisionβwhere she took second placeβHoogenraad, 31, was enjoying the moment.
Ian MacKinnon: When you look back on it now, how do you think about winning the title?
Zara Hoogenraad: It’s such a special moment in my life. It’s a feeling that I never ever experienced in my life before. Because the past few years I had a lot of self-doubt and didn’t really believe in myself. I think just to get that the world title changed that, also a lot for me mentally.
IM: Some of the athletes have mental coaches. Do you have anybody to help you like that?
ZH: I went to see a therapist last year because I was just not in the right space in my head, personally, but also with my career. And that changed a lot because I really got to know myself better and I learnt where it comes fromβfrom my past and how I grew up and everything. It shows where everything comes from and why you respond in certain ways. That for me makes all the difference to change how I respond to things, because it comes from my past. But it doesn’t mean that I need to stay like that forever, right?
βNow or neverβ
IM: Is that something that helps you in competition in the moment?
ZH: One hundred percent, yes. For example, in the beginning, at competitions when I didn’t do well, I got sad. I was, like yeah, it’s light wind again and shitty conditions. I was really being negative. Those were my first responses, the first emotions that I felt. Now I’m just trying to change it. Because the only person I have to look at is myself. To be mad at the conditions and the organisers was too easy.
So I felt I just have to adapt and my time will come. It makes me so much more happy because if I stay the whole day sad or angry at the conditions, it’s not going to be good for me. Now I’m just adapting. Like when I got out in the semis [in Brazil] due to the lack of wind. Then in the final I was, like, maybe I can help Mika [Sol] with some stuff, and then I just changed the whole situation. And I had a very nice day.
IM: Take us back through the Gran Canaria final where you won the title. How was it for you?
ZH: I put my first three scores on the board with a single loop tricks. Then I switched to a 6m kite for the double loops. I did an S-Loop and then Francesca [Maini] did a Boogie Contra with the kite super-low. That scored really well. It all came down to my last trick attempt. I also had some problems with my gear. I went back to the beach and got my boyfriend’s [Giel Vlugt] board, so I rode back upwind and he was shouting, “It’s now or never. You have to do a Boogie Double Loop.” That’s a Front Roll with two loops, but I’d never done it before.
βItβs so amazingβ
I’d only done the loops, or two loops, or the S-Loop. But I thought, if I want to become a world champion, I have to give it my everything and I felt the adrenaline rushing to my body. I attempted it and I landed it and I looked at the beach. I remember I saw the kite do one, two loops. But when I landed I wondered: did it loop twice? I looked at the beach and a whole beach was jumping. I was screaming. I was like, OK, I guess it looped twice and then all the emotions came out. It’s this feeling I never experienced before in my life. It’s so amazing.
IM: You’re just about to compete in the first women’s Red Bull, and you helped bring it about. How did that happen?
Angely Bouillot started to talk with Red Bull a few years ago but back then there were not many women. I reached out to them in December 2023, because I felt like it was time to get a women’s division. I heard that Pippa van Iersel was also in touch with them.
Then together we were pushing all the time. In September we had a meeting with them again. This time they they came very prepared, they had a PowerPoint and everything. A few weeks ago we saw it [on social media] and then it was like another dream coming through.
images: Svetlana Romantsova
