Take a sea not too rough with the swell, a good dose of wind, optional sunshine, and you have the recipe for happiness for Anaïs-Mai Desjardin. The young woman is a specialist in kite foil, or new generation kite surfing, where the boards are equipped with this famous profiled wing which allows you to navigate on the surface of the water, towed by a kind of XXXL kite. At 22, she dreams of qualifying for the Paris Olympics in just over a year.
“Honestly, it will be complicated”, warns us from the start Anaïs-Mai Desjardins, whom you will find every two months on 20 minutes to follow its evolution until, we hope, at the Olympics. Junior European champion in 2018 and vice-champion of France in 2020 and 2021, she has since fallen back in the hierarchy of French women’s kite foil, the fault of a sudden increase in the general level of the discipline since she obtained the Olympic badge for 2024 and the physical evolution that followed, where large sizes of 70-80 kg are favoured.
“I do this sport because it is my passion”
A turn in the kite foil which was, at the start, “a little difficult to digest” for the featherweight Desjardins, 55 kg: “The kite foil, I have been doing it since I was little, unlike other athletes who started because it was Olympic. I almost found it unfair, because I do this sport because it’s my passion. There is only one girl per nation who will go to the Games and at the last world championships, there were three French women in the top 10. I arrived 18th, and I wondered whether or not I was continuing in view of the games. But I didn’t think long, I like to finish the things I started. »
A discipline discovered thanks to his father, also a fan of sea kites. But the girl from Val-d’Oise started kite surfing at only 13 years old. “At the beginning, I didn’t want to and, for safety reasons, it needed a certain weight. A year after her debut in the discipline, Anais-Mai Desjardins began competing and everything then followed very quickly: the first performances, the first results and the first requests. Eric Watrin, from the hopeful center of Dunkirk, offers him to join the North in order to integrate the establishment as well as a high school with a sports section. And the whole family follows the teenager in the housing estate of Jean Bart. An evidence.
“We were already going back and forth every weekend to kite, so why not move to the seaside to practice our passion to the fullest? That same year, Anaïs-Mai Desjardins discovered the kite foil, and the joy of flying over the sea with these new generation boards: “It was a revelation, I really loved the feeling and I thought it was really what I wanted to do. »
A break from kiting to focus on studies
This does not prevent the young woman from thinking about her future. Attracted by medical studies, she decided, for her first year of college, to put aside the kite foil for a year to devote herself to studies. A success, in the end, even if the year was complicated to live without a board: “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t do it the same way, she says. I would have had better results if I had taken a little more time for myself, for my sport. In the second and third years, I found a balance, with four hours of review per day, and after that it was kiting and physical preparation. »
Now in her fourth year, which she has managed to divide into two years thanks to the support of the University of Lille for high-level athletes, Anaïs-Mai Desjardin can thus advance her two projects simultaneously: sport and medicine.
For me, the secret is that I was consistent and that allowed me to withstand the shock. Afterwards, the stress level rose very high. Sometimes I returned from competition, and a week later, I had my exams. So, during my competition, I was thinking about my exams, and once I got home, I was in a rush. At the beginning, there was a form of guilt for not working like the others, but since my results were more than satisfactory, I had found my balance. »
This double project also allowed him to attract several sponsors, who came directly to canvass the athlete. A lifeline for the young woman as the cost of a kite foil season is high, between 50,000 and 100,000 euros, including equipment, travel, registrations for competitions. The latter, moreover, offer almost no prize money. “There, this year, I don’t think I’m losing any money, but I’m not making any either. And I’m one of those with the most sponsors. »
Nearly 200 days a year on the move
Today separated from her trainer, whom she paid out of pocket, the young woman prepares her sessions herself, while keeping in touch with Eric Watrin. She is still accompanied by a physical trainer and a sports psychologist. “I’m the only actress in my project, and I tended to delegate a lot,” she explains. I structure my training myself, I have acquired a lot of notions that allow me to do this. And I try to go to places where there are people I can train with. And I measure myself during competitions. »
If her home base remains Dunkirk, in particular “because” of studies, Anais-Mai Desjardins spends most of her time on the move, “about 200 days a year”. In 2022, she even took up residence in Montpellier, where she was training, so that round trips from the North would be less restrictive. “The logistics in the kite can be quite tiring. If I could travel by train, that would be great, but I have too much material. »
After the 2024 Olympics, whether she participates or not, the Northerner does not see herself continuing kite foiling at a very high level: “Kiteing, you can’t do that after your day’s work, you need only it’s daytime, there’s wind, so it’s generally in the middle of the afternoon, not really compatible with a boarding school, especially since I don’t want to finish my medical studies at 40 . With 44 years of contributions, retirement would come at age 84. Not sure that’s a golden plan.