Para Tessa Kortekaas (Voorhout, Países Bajos, 1988) la Titan Desert has stopped being a competition and has become a excuse to meet the family. The other familythe one that you don’t even choose, that you find at the races and that you are happy to see again even if it is from year to year. She was the winner of the Skoda Titan Desert Almería, a test in which she finds no competition, but which she has learned to enjoy in a different way. She was twentieth in the final overall, won all the stages in the women’s category and enjoyed many kilometers with Peter Sagan.
“In Sailafter reaching the top there was a technical stop. He stopped at the aid station and I didn’t and As he descends like crazy, soon he was at my wheel and it made me nervous.. When there was a little space I said, “Please come in, you’re making me nervous.” I tried to follow him, but impossible. I better not try to continue because I will fall and lose more. It was very special to climb all of Velefique together», confesses this cyclist who returned to the bicycle almost by chance.
«I’ve been riding a bike since I was little, because I’m from Holland. and there everyone moves by bike. It’s a long story, but I stopped racing road bikes when I was 20 or so.“, remember. Until then, ice skating and cycling shared their time. «I had more talent for cycling, but I liked skating more. Then I have seen girls that I competed with in cycling compete in the Olympic Games and things like that and I have always thought “I could be there”, but When I was 20 years old I had a blood virus, Epstein-Barr. And it took me three years to recover“, account. When he returned he was not able to return to his level and became frustrated. “I came home crying,” he confesses.
«“I needed a goal to seek my limits in another way,” says. That’s when he met him triathlon. «My level grew quite quickly and after two years I was competing as a professionalalthough with very few sponsors. I couldn’t live off it. It was a hard life, because I had to work, train, rest and nothing else,” explains Tessa in perfect Spanish. «The first Ironman I did was in Lanzarote. Since I like challenges, I chose almost the hardest one in the world,” he says. They offered her a job as a tourist guide to take tours around the island and she stayed there. «My job was a masseuse but I worked as a freelancer and I didn’t think about it much. I went to Lanzarote with the idea of “I’m going to try it for a year. If I like it, I stay, and if I don’t, I go back home.” and I never came back“, remember. The job did not convince him. Outings with tourists delayed his training. He found work in a sports center as a physio. «And I was there until last year when Cannondale signed me and I was able to stop working», he adds.
He had a bad time in the pandemic. «All races were cancelled. The confinement affected me a lot and when we went to compete, with the pressure I put on myself, I had a lot of stomach problems due to stress. There was nothing else, because I tried everything, I changed my diet, but it was because of stress, because training he never had problems. Only in the race,” he admits. “There came a point two years ago that I was burned out.” But one call changed everything. August Pascual, manager of the Kosner Saltoki team, offered him to ride the Moroccan Titan. «I said “it seems good to me, but don’t put pressure on me, because I am doing this to enjoy myself and because I have to disconnect from the triathlon. I’m going to forget about winning, I’m going to forget about running. I just want a bike and then we will see if we return to the triathlon or not”. We already know the history of the Moroccan Titan [ganó en categoría femenina y fue decimoctava en la general]», he explains.
“The adventure.” That’s what caught his attention. Titan Desert. «To go to Morocco last year my dream was that, to live the adventure, but I couldn’t imagine it was going to be like this, a family, which is not just competitionwe professionals do go to win, but the atmosphere is totally different to a stage race anywhere, you forget a little about the pressure there is. You can’t compare it with a stage race either because it doesn’t have the comfort, you don’t stay in a hotel where you sleep in a normal bed, It’s all very primitive and that makes it more intense and since I like to look for the limits you are not running in your best condition. Every Titan I like to come more, because you are more and more part of the family”, .Tessa reflects. «Before coming to Almería I thought, why do I come to Almería? To win another easy race, although you can’t think about that before a race, you know that if everything goes well it will be like that. Because I am a professional, I had little hope, but on the other hand I really wanted to see the people you see every year and live the experience with all those people. Now even more so because People know you and want to take photos, wants to talk Before It was difficult for me because my head was too focused on the race.I wanted to finish my degree and I want to rest, go to my room or my tent and now it is totally different, I rest much less because I have interviews, when I go to the briefing people want to talk, they want to take photos. It’s not that it bothered me before, but it bothered me a little. and now I don’t worry about that,” he confesses.
Are you happier now? «I ask myself that many times. Would you enjoy it the same if you didn’t earn so much? It’s a stupid question because it’s not like that. What I do notice is that I’m much more relaxed, I don’t put pressure on myself. I think that’s the most important thing now, that I don’t put so much pressure on myself and that’s why things turn out better, because I’m more relaxed,” she says. The triathlon is still waiting.
