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Mikaili Sol - 4 times World Champion and exceptional athlete

Another dominant performance and season has landed MIKA SOL with her 4th world title and the event win at the GKA Superkite Brazil.

Hear the Full interview

Hear the Full interview

Congratulations Mika on the event and title win! How does it feel to win your fourth world title?

I feel winning the fourth world title is super surreal. I’ve always wanted to do better, win more and push the sport. By winning and winning it motivates me to get better and push the level higher. It’s an insane feeling knowing you are the best and knowing you are the person everyone looks up to right now and the one who is pushing the sport. I think in the future everything will align and women and men will become equal. 

This contest saw your regular competition in the field, but also other previous world champions that were on tour before your time. Having looked up to the likes of Bruna Kajiya and Karolina Winkowska, describe the feeling of competing against them in a heat and winning.
It was super cool because in one of the heats, I think the Semi Final I was competing against Bruna Kajiya, Karolina Winkowska and Katie Potter. Both Bruna and Karolina have 3 world titles each and I had three world titles at that point, so a combined 9 world titles in one heat! I think that was super cool to see because each one of us has won the world title multiple times.

Who else were standouts and impressed you at the event?
I want to give a shout out to Natalie because her riding has improved so much and I think she is another one of the girls who is pushing the level, also Gianmaria (Coccoluto), he was doing insanely well. Hopefully next year he’ll make it to the finals and win! I think everyone is pushing right now, but I hope everything works out and that next year all the Duotone riders are at the top.

Did you have a plan and strategy going in? Were you playing it safe for the title or going all out for the win?
I didn’t really have a strategy going in, but I did have a thing going that I would make the four solid tricks and then go into my harder tricks to get more points and take more risks.

Tell us, how were the conditions in each of your heats? 

The conditions during all of the heats were really good. There was maybe one heat during high tide where the wind was a little gusty, but I think all in all the conditions throughout this event were some of the best conditions we’ve had in the past two years of contest riding. I think the good conditions we had not only helped me, but also all the other girls to do their best during the competition and I think it was great to have these good conditions. During the competition and heats, I wasn’t stressed, I wanted to enjoy myself on the water and think of it more like training than actual competition, as I think if you start getting too stressed during a heat, then you end up making a mistake because you are overthinking too much. 

Was there a stand out trick in your mind, one you were most satisfied to land during the contest?
I ended up making the 317 (Raley with a frontside 720 rotation) in the heat and competition twice. I think that was a shocker to a lot of people. I am the first girl to make a 317 and a double handle pass in a competition and I think this will inspire girls to start training harder and believe in themselves to do doubles.

Leading up to the contest, how has your training and preparation been?
My training involved two hours of gym work every other day and then kiting 3 hours a day. I was trying to eat as healthy as possible and keep my body in the best shape so I could have the best stamina, so I wouldn’t get tired after a few tricks and knowing if I had multiple heats in one day that I wouldn’t be exhausted. I was working on keeping focus and having more tricks and training a ton!

Many forget that alongside your four titles you also manage a full-time education and all the responsibilities that go along with being a pro athlete, how challenging is it to manage all of this whilst staying on top of your training?

Being a full-time athlete is really hard, I manage to do school along with it, but I think in the future when I am finished with my schooling and can focus fully on kiting, my stress level will be a lot lower. Right now, I’ll have to juggle training on the water and physical training outside of the water alongside all the other responsibilities. I know Instagram is not that big of a deal, but after a while it all adds up and becomes this super stressful thing.

But I think that it’s something that helps you grow as a person, being able to juggle these responsibilities. Some people never learn how to do that and when they have to go to an actual job they suffer, so I think doing this all right now helps me learn how important time management is.

With such a high level of riding, where do you find inspiration to keep pushing the boundaries? 

I try to look for my inspiration not from the women’s side, but from the men's side of kiteboarding. I know that training with them helps me get to a higher level as I see what they are doing as inspiration. All of the insane tricks they are doing right now makes me want to push my level even harder and do the tricks that they do and therefore be an inspiration for other girls to step up their own level. I think setting the standards of women’s kiteboarding higher will make more women want to join the sport too.

Yourself and some of your fellow competitors have been advocating for equal prize money at the GKA events, something we have seen at other events for a while now. What is the current situation, what progress has been made and how important do you see this for women’s sports for equal status?

I think equal prize money is a very sensitive, but very important subject right now. Many other sports have equal prize money, in the Olympics for example it’s equal prize money. I think it’s super important not only for us as athletes, but for the sport in general to not have separate standards for Men, higher than Women. I think once we get equal pay and equal everything, it will encourage more women to join the sport and compete as they know it has value.

When you go to an event right now you make half the amount that men do, so it’s not possible to sustain yourself as a competitor, so what’s the point in putting all your energy into the sport and competing when the prize money barely pays for a plane ticket to go to and from an event. I think it’s very unfair and hope this will change.

 

Thanks again for speaking with us today and congratulations once again, are there any shoutouts you want to give?

I want to thank my sponsors, Duotone and Ion and my parents for always being there to cheer for me and supporting me.