Gisela Pulido has been flying very high since she was very young, holding onto the kitesurf kite that makes her soar at great speed over the sea and has made her a world-class athlete. Ten-time world champion in the discipline, the first in 2004 when she could count her years on her fingers, the Barcelona athlete never shied away from challenges and since the beginning of the year has been undergoing a transformation to stop obsessing over the Olympic medal she did not find in Paris 2024. The transition from ‘Formula Kite’ to ‘Big Air’, where athletes rise up to 30 meters above the surface and can travel more than 100 meters with a single jump, involves added risks that ended with the Catalan pioneer in the hospital.
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It happened a few days ago on Los Lances beach, a seven-kilometer stretch of fine white sand turned into a mecca for the discipline due to its good climate and constant exposure to the converging winds of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic located in Tarifa, where she lives. “I fell from quite a height and hit my ribs hard. Luckily, after the tests, it was just a scare: I have some cartilage fissures and intercostal muscle injuries… but nothing serious,” says Pulido, 32, treated on the beach by emergency services and taken by ambulance to a public hospital in the area.
“‘Big Air’ is a discipline that has its risks and that is something I already knew. When you try to push your limits a little further, you also know what you are exposing yourself to,” admits the Olympic athlete, who has separated from the pre-Olympic team of the Spanish Sailing Federation to organize her own training. “We had many days without conditions, we only had two days of east wind and I wanted to make the most of them and give it my all. But you also have to know when to stop and listen to your body. It was my third session of the day and it was already sunset. The truth is we are not aware of how dangerous it is to sail so late and sometimes we are a bit reckless, and I include myself,” she details about the incident, which kept her bedridden for two days in the medical center and now forces her to wear a cervical collar for a few days as a precaution.
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The decision to change course and fly higher responds to a need to take care of her physical and mental health, since to aspire to medals in Formula Kite, which is practiced with a ‘foil’ that stays close to the water with the intention of going as fast as possible, it is necessary to gain weight to be able to apply more force on the sea. The champions in Paris weighed around 80 kilos, and she weighs about 60 at her 1.65 meters tall, so she now assumes that the gap is practically insurmountable. To reach the last Games with options, she had to give up veganism to gain weight effectively, another burden she carried in her backpack.
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After suffering it throughout the last Olympic cycle, returning to her roots, detaching from the ground to be able to jump and do tricks several meters high, has allowed her to regain enthusiasm for the discipline and see herself again fighting for podiums and victories within the circuit. With a transition that started at the beginning of 2026, her first World Cup in the new category came in mid-June on the Greek island of Mykonos, where she had to say goodbye in the second round just before the semifinals. “It still hurts not having been able to reach the semifinals or the final, and obviously there is a lot of work to do. I have only been with ‘Big Air’ since January, and everything takes its time, its path. I can’t expect to come here and be at the very top. It’s something I’m passionate about, I like it, and I feel I can go very far,” she said then.
Pulido, who for years has demanded better facilities and conditions for practicing her sport in Tarifa, where unfortunately she has suffered much more serious accidents up close, wanted to thank the quick intervention of her teammates and emergency teams after the severe accident, a setback that will force her to pause her new training plan towards Los Angeles 2028.
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