Noa Rabou
help Noa Rabou naar de Olympische Spelen van 2026

Ik ben Noa Rabou 17 jaar en alpineskiester, op 14 jarige leeftijd ben ik gestart op het skigymnasium in Saalfelden om mijn droom te verwezenlijken.

Mijn doel is om mij te kwalificeren voor de Olympische Spelen van 2026 in Turijn, Italië.

Op de route naar de wereldtop kan ik natuurlijk nog veel steun gebruiken. Komend schooljaar is mijn laatste jaar in Saalfelden en daarna moet ik mijn eigen route gaan bepalen.

Mede dankzij de schriftelijke verklaring van mijn trainer heb ik financiële tegemoetkoming ontvangen van het YVGTF waar ik natuurlijk ontzettend blij mee ben: met onderstaande brief heeft mijn trainer het YVGTF weten te overtuigen:

“Noa Rabou: Sponsoring Talent Fund

Dear Yvonne van Gennip,

Unfortunately, I don’t speak Dutch, but I hope my German is sufficient and I will also translate this letter in English.

My name is Markus Sparber, I have been a Trainer for more than 25 years. For many years I worked as a trainer for the Austrian Ski Association, and I was active in the men's World Cup as Sports Science Consultant. I have trained athletes such as Walchhofer Michael, Hermann Maier, Marcel Hirscher and many others. For the past 2 years I have been training Noa Rabou at Schigymnasium Saalfelden.

From a sporting point of view Noa really is a diamond in the rough – a great talent, probably one of the greatest talents that the Dutch Alpine Ski racing sport has seen to date. Noa can perform fast turns, which not many other Alpine ski athletes on the international stage are able to execute, especially on moderately steep and flat terrain. On steep slopes there is room for improvement, and she needs to smooth out technical mistakes – but she is very young and still in training, I am very hopeful that this year, and in the coming years, I will be able to correct the faults.

Her ambition and motivation are outstanding, she gets annoyed when she doesn't succeed in a run: „others can do this too“ she says – but in this instance the „others“ are older or European Cup and World Cup riders. This speaks for her and her attitude. She has huge potential that has yet to be developed. I am positive that if she continues in this manner, improves technically and physically according to her age, great successes in the FIS, European Cup and World Cup are very possible.

Last year’s successes are impressive - by comparison, in Austria Noa would most likely be in the National C Squad (5 best Austrians born in 2004).

In January of the 2020/21 slalom Season, her first FIS year, she reached 61.88 points (29.12.20 in Hochfügen) and 57.83 points (Rogla SLO 11.02.21), putting her among the top 15 athletes in the world born in 2004.

Things are going very well this year too; she was able to improve from 50.06 points on 31.12.2021 in Axamer Lizum to 49.18 points on 09.01.22 in Maria Alm, and she currently stands at 44.33 points, which is an improvement of approximately 2 seconds compared to last year; keep in mind the Junior World Championships.

There is room for improvement in the giant slalom. After positive training sessions in January and February of this year I expect solid progress in the near future which will be reflected in the coming races.

In this season Noa has already improved a great deal, in the FIS GS Baselist she had 95.93 points at the start of the season and has since reduced this by 26 points to 69.89 points. This corresponds to

an improvement in performance of around 2 seconds. And we are far from finished – the season still has a long time to go.

Noa’s performance at the Junior World Championship was outstanding, she was able to achieve 4th place in her age group and 12th place in the overall ranking.

Skiing is very expensive: boarding school in Saalfelden, ski cards, skis (2x SL, 2x GS, 2x SG, and 2x DH, a total of 8 pairs of skis per season), bindings, wax, racing suits and the rest of the equipment for a normal training day, cost lots of money. Not to mention additional costs that are incurred for races i.e. accommodation, food, lift tickets, registration fees and finally the extremely expensive wax, which make ski racing expensive. For the parents, it takes a huge financial effort which is difficult to maintain. I am more than convinced that an investment in Noa is the right thing to do as she is a diamond in the rough and a great talent. Noa’s results, her position in the WCSL list and the opportunity to utilise her talent makes reaching the World Cup realistic. Unfortunately, talent, the will to train and ambition alone do not help if the financial framework does not fit or is too small.

Therefore, I personally ask you to help Noa, she really deserves your support – it would be devastating if she could not achieve her goals due to lack of finances, it would be detrimental for skiing in general, in particular Dutch ski racing, and would bode ill for any other young Dutch talent.

Noa is helpful, always upbeat, energetic, and sociable - she's the one who comforts other athlete when things aren't going so well for them. She has settled in very well at the ski school, is respected there and has become a leader in our group. She will be an ambassador to be proud of and someone who knows how to represent her country.

I hope that my objective but sometimes also partial opinion about Noa have helped to make your decision easier.

Kind regards,

Markus Sparber”