Talented alpine skier Noa Rabou joins Reggeborgh Foundation's Groene Appel programme
Alpine skier Noa Rabou has been accepted into the Reggeborgh Foundation's Groene Appeltjes programme. The talented skier recently made her debut at the Alpine Skiing World Championships and hopes to qualify for the Olympic Games in Milan next year. ‘But the 2030 Olympic Games are my ultimate goal. That's more realistic,’ says the 20-year-old from Brabant.
‘How does a Dutch girl, raised in a country without mountains, end up in a sport like alpine skiing?’ That is often the first question asked of Noa Rabou when she tells people she is a professional skier. ‘When I was eleven, my sister and I took part in a school skiing competition on a brush track. We turned out to have talent and were asked to join the team there for training,’ Rabou explains.
She never took skiing lessons. At the age of three, she was already skiing down the mountain behind her father. To train skiing in the Netherlands, she had to use the brush track. That turned out to be more fun than expected. Until she was thirteen, she combined skiing with athletics, but because skiing was taking up more and more of her time, she eventually chose skiing.
She was only fourteen when she made the decision to attend the Skigymnasium in Austria. This allowed her to combine school and sport, but it did mean that she had to move abroad at a young age. ‘That was very difficult. Away from home, away from my friends. The language was new to me.’ Nevertheless, Noa took on the challenge.
I would rather regret that choice than regret not having tried it. In that respect, I am a go-getter. I don't give up easily."
- Noa Rabou
It has brought her to where she is today. Rabou, who specialises in slalom, skis with the best in the world. Last winter, she made her appearance on the World Cup circuit and made her debut at the World Championships in Saalbach, Austria, in February.
She has now graduated and is studying at the Johan Cruyff Academy in Tilburg. During the winter months, she stays in Austria and Italy to ski, and in the summer she trains in the Netherlands. Rabou has a ski coach for the winter and a trainer who draws up strength training programmes for her. ‘Other than that, I do a lot on my own and have to figure things out for myself, because unfortunately there is no Dutch ski team.’