How child world champion kitesurfer Gisela Pulido grew up with her sport

Gisela Pulido has a unique relationship with her sport.

LeBron James may be the best basketball player of his era, Mondo Duplantis has 10 world records (and counting) in the pole vault, and Faith Kipyegon has three consecutive Olympic 1500m gold medals.

But unlike 30-year-old kitesurfer Pulido, none of them have been at the top for almost as long as their sport has existed.

"I was six years old when I started kiting and I won the World Championship when I was 10," Pulido tells Olympics.com at her home in Tarifa, Spain.

"I remember going on the podium with all the girls and I was at the top, but I was still smaller than the other girls because I was so short.

"I think kitesurfing as we know it now was created in the year 2000 or something like that. So I only started kiting two years after. And the sport is so young still."

Growing up together

That World Championship win – against adults – was the first of a record 10 titles.

Then kitesurfing entered a new era as it was picked to make its Olympic debut at Paris 2024. But an evolution for kitesurfing meant a revolution for Pulido, as the Queen of Freestyle would have to learn how to race instead.

"I stopped freestyle and started Formula Kite," says Pulido. "It was like starting from scratch.

"I mean, I know how to fly a kite. I know how to ride a board, but at the end it's a different kite. I'm not riding a board on the water. It's like a foil, which I'm flying above the water.

"One of the biggest challenges for me was the physical change. I gained 12 kilos."

As a vegan, it was tough for Pulido to put on the muscle and weight required to match the speeds eventual gold medallist Ellie Aldridge achieved on the board for Great Britain.

She would end up two spots outside the semi-final places, but is planning another tilt for Los Angeles 2028 without too much concern for her eventual ranking.

"The guy who won the Olympics (Valentin Bontus) weighs 115 kilos. I'm 60 kilos. So with my weight, I don't really have a chance for a good result," says Pulido. "[But] I really liked the four years of Olympic campaign. I grew up as an athlete, as a person.

"I think I'm a totally different person than when I started. I know so much more now about how to prepare for whatever goal you have. It was a tough four years, not getting the results I wanted after winning 10 World Championships and then struggling with this new discipline.

"And then I felt super, super motivated to go to the Olympics. I felt like for the first time in my life, I'm competing not by myself. I feel like I'm taking everyone in Spain with me, you know?"

Flying in the family

Pulido's love of sport comes from her father, Juan Manuel. She arrives for the interview fresh from a mountain bike ride, and also surfs big waves, practises freediving, swimming, snowboarding... pretty much anything that involves molecules of H₂O.

"In the future I want to transition myself into like a water woman that does all the sports in the water, in the air," she says.

But kitesurfing was almost ruled out, until the young Gisela took matters into her own hands.

"My dad was one of the first persons to kite in Spain. He had to buy a kite from Hawaii that he took to Germany, and then the kite arrived in Spain. So it took a while," remembers Pulido.

"I asked him, 'Can you teach me kitesurfing?' And he said, 'No, it's too dangerous for you.' So that's why, at six years old, I started flying kites in the sand.

"I built my own kite, which didn't really fly. And then when he saw it, he bought me a small kite and I was just in the sand practising. When I turned eight, I managed to go on the water for the first time.

"I just remember it was so natural. I just felt really, really natural and easy because I already did so many other sports. And then I just liked it so much that I wanted to do it every time."

At home with kitesurfing

Turning professional at age 10 also meant moving from Barcelona to Tarifa – the European, if not global, epicentre of the sport.

Kites dot the sky everywhere along the length of its beach while, near the headland which separates the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, kitesurfers shoot up into the sky practising their big air skills.

"Everybody comes here for kiting or wing foiling or windsurfing. It's like the wind capital," says Pulido. "I would say it's windy every day. And if there's no wind, it's really strange."

For Pulido, it's important to keep the things that are important to her close by. Like her poise on the board, her life is all about balance.

"Since I was really young, I had kind of a different life from other kids," she says. "But besides the sacrifices I had to make, I would say competition and sport and being in nature is the best thing. If I have kids, I would love that they live the same life as I lived.

"I think I'm a person that, of course, I'm selfish in a way that I want to think about myself, my happiness. What do I need to be happy? To do sports, live in nature, to be with my dogs, with my family. Then what I have around me, I want to take care of because for me, that's the most valuable thing I have.

"I think I'm really lucky that my job is what I love the most doing – sport, competing – and I can make a living out of these."