Ani Sisul, the pioneer of wakeboarding in Paraguay, has a long crop of national titles and a world runner-up position achieved in 2018 in Japan during the Wakeboard World Championships, organized by the World Wakeboard Association (WWA), managed to fly the tricolor flag in the Asu 2022 South American Games, finishing in the top 5 of the competition.
Wakeboard or water ski on board, is a sport in which an athlete slides over the water on top of a board being dragged with a rope called palonier by a boat, a jet ski. Ani Sisul tells us about his experience in what could be his last international competition at a professional level.
What experience did you have with the Asu 2022 Games?
For me it was a beautiful gift to be able to participate in these games because it was not in my plans to compete again at this age, so doing it at home representing Paraguay once again was incredible. It felt super different having the public finally on our side.
Achieve to be among the top five that generates you?
The truth is that it was a surprise, I didn’t even expect to go to the final because I had very little training time and I’ve been out of high-performance competition for more than two years, clearly it’s like riding a bike and I’m grateful that my body He was able to accompany me well in the face of all the demands of training and competition.
How much preparation time did it take you to achieve these results?
I joined the team that was going to participate in the games very shortly before everything started, I had less than a month of training in the water but since I am very active physically, it was easy for me to pick up the pace again, at first it was a bit difficult start, because I am no longer used to such intensity.
What did it mean for you to represent Paraguay in Asu 2022?
I believe that the dream of every athlete is to be able to stand out so much in their sport and get to represent Paraguay internationally. I fulfilled that dream before and it is wonderful, I have participated abroad several times, Bolivarian, World Cup, Odesur and Pan American, it was always an incredible feeling.
But I never imagined that representing Paraguay hosting the games would be much more incredible, I don’t know why, I don’t know if it’s the public, if it’s the pride of being from Paraguay, I can’t describe in words what it generates for you, but it feels amazing. It is fascinating to have the entire public with your flag, cheering you on, it is inspiring, ultra-satisfying, it gives “piri” to tears of emotion. It makes all the stress and effort worth every second.
How was it for you to lean into this sport?
It was because I found in the same sport everything I like the most. It is an individual sport, but with friends, in contact with nature, I love the water and incredible sunsets, feeling the wind on my face, the freedom that you feel behind the boat and the emotion generated by each jump, each pirouette. The perfect combination of calm and adrenaline in the right measure.
How complicated is your discipline?
A lot of body care is needed, healthy muscles, a lot of presence, concentration and precision, because it is an extreme and high-impact sport that if you do not respect the limits of your body and the instability of the environment such as the weather, you can get injured. wrong. You must pay attention at all times and know how to adapt, flow with changes, also having the mental strength to be able to go through fears.
What would be missing for more people to get involved in Wakeboarding?
It is a beautiful, colorful and very easy sport to practice if you have all the implements and facilities, such as the boat and the equipment. But I would say that in order to reach more people and make our sport known, greater sports development is needed by the Federation, just as it happens with other sports, where one can go to a place and practice easily. We don’t have that, for example: a lake with a boat, equipment to rent and a coach that you can hire to teach you, so that makes it a difficult sport to access.
That is why I value other sports very much, where the federations were able to organize themselves quite well and with time for these games. They managed to acquire that investment for their sports, they built tracks, fields, which previously they did not have. Now they have a fixed space to train from now on. In our case, unfortunately, it did not happen that way and I do not know the reason, for our tests they rented boats, ramps, tracks from neighboring countries. We have nothing left to work on sports development.
What are your next goals in the sport?
On a personal level, I feel that I have already fulfilled all the objectives I had within the sport, I am very satisfied with my results, what I gave and left for the country. I am the first and only woman to develop inverted tricks (pirouettes), I was Vice World Champion, several medals in Bolivarian, Latin American. The first wakeboard athlete to qualify for a Pan American Games and be in a final. Now I want to focus on working for sports development and creating new hotbeds of athletes so that I can share all my experience with more people.
Can one live from wakeboarding?
Never, in Paraguay at least not. This is still a very amateur sport and training is very expensive, especially now that fuel is so expensive.
What sporting achievements did you achieve in the discipline?
Multiple national championships.
Finalist in Pan American Lima 2019.
Silver Medal ? at the 2018 Wakeboard World Championship.
Silver Medal ? at the 2018 Latin American Championship.
Silver ? and Bronze ? Medal at the 2016 and 2017 Bolivarian Games, respectively.
Those were my greatest achievements.
What do you do apart from sports?
I never really dedicated myself 100% to sport, I always worked apart from training, one cannot live from sport alone, much less in Paraguay, unless you are a footballer, but for non-traditional sports yes or if you have to have one or more more jobs to be able to pay your personal expenses and training costs, it is not cheap to reach a high competitive level, you have to invest in training and competitions abroad.
How is the routine of an athlete who does wakeboarding?
The ideal routine for someone who is 100% dedicated to sports (this is not my case), would be to train in water at least four to five days a week, sessions of no more than 30-40 min, accompanied by acrobatic training in trampoline or floor, also specific strengthening exercises for injury prevention, yoga, pilates to strengthen and lengthen, days of rest and recovery with sports massage, psychological support is essential, good nutrition and supplementation.
If we can get all of that on a specific schedule, this would be the perfect routine to create a champion, gold medal guaranteed.
What message would you give people to encourage them to play sports?
There is nothing better, it is a unique feeling that you have after doing exercises or a sport that you like, that you are passionate about, apart from being fun, satisfying, it ensures good health. People should be encouraged to start with easy routines, at least 20 minutes when you get up, a little movement to oxygenate the joints is already a beautiful gift for the body and helps you start the day differently.
PROFILE
Name: Ana
Surname: Sisul Diaz-BeNza
Date of Birth: 08/28/1985
Place of birth: Assumption
Applied studies: Lic. Marketing and Advertising – Master in Environmental Management
Hobby: watch movies and meditate
debut age: 22 years
