Daniela Moroz is back on track

When the International Olympic Committee mandated its Olympic sports to submit dynamic event programs with gender balance, the committees at World Sailing joined the other 31 sports to meet the directive for Paris 2024.

Changing events and equipment, while expensive and disruptive, has regularly occurred for Sailing since the first Olympiad in 1896, but the heightened IOC demands required a significant shuffle for the sport.

Among the new events is Men’s and Women’s Kiteboard which should be strengths for the USA. American Johnny Heineken was the early pacesetter in kite racing, helping to develop the sport enroute to world titles and the 2012 US Yachtsmen of the Year award. But close on his heels has been Daniela Moroz.

Now a four-time world titlist and two-time US Yachtswoman of the Year, Moroz has been epically dominant as kite racing has evolved. But when you’ve been shredding as a teenager, Paris becomes a long time to rule the world.

In this interview with Flysurfer, the 20-year-old provides an update:

Daniela Moroz took a year off to get her mojo back. After the stress of competition, constant training, non-stop travel and intensive studying, she lost her motivation. We sat down with her after a very successful comeback and two race wins in Spain.

What did you do during your burnout?
I tried to do as many new and different things as I could. I learned to wing at the beginning of the summer and became obsessed with that. I also got a road bike and put a lot of miles on that. Later, I was living in my van in Southern California surf foiling every day in the fall.

When did you jump back on your race foil?
I got back on my race gear around mid-December after almost six months off. I was spending some time in Miami, Florida with US Sailing learning more about campaigning and the Olympic sailing scene. In the winter, Olympic and development class sailors migrate to Florida for domestic training – seeing all the other Olympic sailors train and work together definitely inspired me to work on my own campaign. Plus, I was feeling the fire to get back on my race gear and start training with new goals and a very new and different mindset. – Full report