Daniela Moroz exclusive: The six-time sailing world champion on staving burnout in the face of exhaustion 

At 23 years old, Daniela Moroz is a six-time world champion and four-time Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year - an accolade widely regarded as the greatest honor in the world of sailing.

However, building a remarkably stacked resume at such a young age hasn’t come without its struggles.

The constant travel, running her campaign and fighting to be amongst the best left Moroz feeling extreme amounts of burnout as the end of 2023 neared, but sitting down with Olympics.com in April of 2024, she revealed how she shifted her mindset from dread to determination as she faces her first ever Olympic Games.

On 11 May, Moroz will begin her attempt for a seventh world title at the Formula Kite World Championships in Hyeres, France - a venue that, according to her blog, is one of her favorites in the world.

Daniela Moroz on curbing the inevitability of burnout

When Moroz sat down to speak to Olympics.com in New York, she casually mentioned that she had flown into the city from Spain the day before the Media Summit, and would turn around to head to France the day it wrapped up.

It was nothing out of the ordinary for Moroz, as she also revealed that she hasn’t had a home base in years and has continued to travel full-time.

But, as anyone who’s ever been on a long trip would know, traveling can be exhausting. Add training and work on top that and Moroz began to face a serious case of burnout as the end of 2023 neared.

She kicked off her season in the spring of that year training in Mexico, before heading to Switzerland and then the Trofea Sofia Regatta in Palma, Spain to race. She would then be faced with the French Olympic Week and the regattas that came along with that, before the Olympic Test Event at the Paris 2024 sailing venue in Marseille, France.

The constant travel began to catch up to her and at the regatta in Spain, she missed the podium to come in fourth for the first time in her kiting career.

“I started racing internationally back in 2015 and had won nearly every regatta I had competed in until now. To not even make it on the podium was unthinkable. It was a tough pill to swallow,” she wrote on her blog.

It was only a matter of weeks before the Olympic Test Event in Marseille, where she would have to turn around and dig for another world class performance if she wanted to secure a spot to the Olympic Games Paris 2024.

“Honestly, I was feeling pretty tired and fatigued from such a long block in France. Although I had settled into a good routine, just being there and surviving in the summer heat was draining,” she wrote.

But, she was excited to begin racing again and pulled off a third place finish - something she said was disappointed by, but happy to have attained her goal of securing an Olympic quota.

The qualification just wasn’t quite enough to stave off the burnout that was seemingly inevitable with the amount of work being put in.

“Despite this nagging feeling of lacking motivation, I kept pushing and kept grinding…I thought I was just pushing myself in a good way - after all, I feel like I’ve always been told that if I work harder and put more hours in than my competitors, then I’ll automatically come out with better results, right? This couldn’t be more inaccurate.”

Then, the burnout hit, and it hit hard.

Moroz felt lost in her sport and began talking to sport psychologists before making the decision to take a break in August of 2023 - something that was much needed to completely shift her mindset and fall in love with her sport, once again.

She returned to the water in January of the Olympic year.

“Going into this year, I'm just buzzing about all of my training and I can't wait for my next training session. And I'm so excited to race again. It's crazy, after ten years of doing this sport, I'm still learning something every single day, and I'm still improving and getting better every day. And I feel so rewarded by that,” she told Olympics.com in April.

Daniela Moroz - a woman of many hats

Sailing in the U.S. operates differently from many sports in the country, in the way that athletes need to independently campaign and fundraise mass amounts of money if they want to compete among the best and have a chance of making it to the pinnacle of their sport - the Olympic Games.

“Doing an Olympic campaign is like running a business, and I’m the CEO,” Moroz wrote.

“I’m constantly fundraising and managing hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to be able to run this business full time.”

Speaking to Olympics.com, she dove into the reality of the situation and how on top of raising money for new state-of-the-art equipment, travel and day-to-day expenses, she also decides where to train and who to train with, how to formulate the perfect email when pitching sponsors, which flights she is going to take and how to keep herself fed - a list of mundane chores that many other Olympic-level athletes in the U.S. have taken care of for them.

“When you look at it one way, it’s an impossible task,” she wrote, but told Olympics.com that there’s a big plus side to the situation as well.

“I think it just teaches you so much. And in the end, it's also a lot that you have control over. So it's cool to be able to manage all these things,” she said.

“I must be doing something right, and have been doing it right for many years now, if winning six consecutive World Championships counts for anything,” she wrote.

Six back-to-back world titles and taking her fourth Rolex Yachtswoman-of-the-Year award on her 22nd birthday - something only four other people have ever done in the 61 years of the award.

Now, she is looking down the barrel at a seventh world title and her first Olympic Games. The world will see if Moroz can pull it all off before she turns 24.

Daniela Moroz on the Paris 2024 sailing venue

Paris 2024 will be Moroz’ first ever Olympic Games, and already being familiar with the Olympic venue, she knows what to expect.

“Marseille is an incredibly challenging venue. The sea state is very difficult because the water is uniquely turbulent. Because of the way the bay is shaped and protected by an island, the water is constantly bouncing off of rocks all around, never settling or being absorbed by a sandy beach,” she wrote.

She explained that in addition to this, it’s a busy port city and popular for recreational sailors, so there is also huge amounts of boat traffic to navigate around.

After an extended period of time at the venue in the summer of 2023, Moroz became acquainted with the water, the weather and the ins and outs, and after falling back in love with the sport, she has the capability to pull off an Olympic gold medal performance to add to her already remarkable resume.

In Marseille, the women’s kite events kick off on 4 August and wrap up with the medal race on 8 August as the final sailing event of the Games.