Laia Sanz: "The best summer nights have been sleeping on a boat in the middle of the sea"

For many years of her life, Laia Sanz has spent her summers racing. Being a fourteen-time world champion and ten-time European champion means training a lot and having few holidays. “I was doing something I really liked and I didn't feel like it was a sacrifice or that I was missing out on anything,” assures the rider, who as she has slowed down a bit, focusing more on the Dakar rally – which is held in January – has been able to make a little more of the summer days to “join family and friends’ plans”.

In fact, one of her favorite days of the year is Sant Joan with her family. “My brother’s name is Joan, and that’s why this date is especially celebrated at home. Sant Joan night is very cool because in a way it inaugurates summer”.

However, the best summer nights in recent years have been spent on the boat that some friends have in Menorca. She particularly remembers a Sant Joan night at sea, watching the fireworks in the distance, surrounded by the people she loves and with all the time in the world. “The days sleeping in the middle of the sea on the boat are the best, for me it’s the greatest disconnection, by far. They are days of wearing a swimsuit all day, there are no schedules, you wake up and go straight to the water, and in the evening, when the sea is calm, it’s brutal, you have dinner quietly and chat about everything with friends,” she explains.

Although people are used to seeing her on wheels, Laia Sanz explains that her place in the world is also in the water. “When I think of summer, I think of the smell of chlorine. When I was little, my mother had to pull me out of the pool because I spent hours in it, I’m brunette, but at the end of the summer I would get blonde streaks from so much chlorine: it’s a smell that has stayed with me”.

The rider considers herself nostalgic because she likes to look back and feel that she has lived beautiful moments. She remembers the summers of her childhood with special fondness. “We used to go to a farmhouse with animals near Balaguer. The door was open all day and my brother and I would go in and out whenever we wanted. We played outside all day, we took the motorbikes and bikes and went up and down, and as there was very little light pollution, you could always see a lot of stars, there were many animals and we really enjoyed the contact with nature,” she recalls.

He also has fond memories of the festivals in his friends' towns and of some evening concerts. Of what he doesn't have such good memories, he assures, is of summer injuries: "They're a pain, with the injured part in a cast I couldn't get into the water!", he concludes, chuckling.