Unchain Our Children’s Friends and Supporters are fantastic individuals with amazing qualities, talents and abilities and we love featuring them so our audience can get a glimpse into their worlds.
Karo van Tonder, Pro Windsurfer, African Slalom and Speed Champion who holds the Africa record and is recognized as the 5th fastest in the world, is a delightful blonde-maned South African beauty and humble top performer of a sport that demands immense strength, both physical and mental, but delivers satisfaction and a sure adrenalin rush when speeding at 90 km per hour with a strong tailwind. The acceleration is scary but liberating and a very real reminder that there is no stopping, turning or reconsidering.
Karo coined a perfectly fitting Afrikaans phrase for windsurfing, “Die Sport van Vlinders”. This equation of agility is evident in numerous action pictures of her performance where one can imagine her on the board as agile and fast as the magnificent migrating Monarch Butterfly travelling at 100km/h at an altitude of several hundred meters! She however, has perfected low flying!
Slicing the salt water on her Super Lightweight AV-Boards Modena Speed at 90 km per hour over 500 meter, Karo triumphantly claimed the Africa Record on Sunday, 1 December 2024 at the Luderitz Speed Challenge in Namibia.
As a keen 12-year-old admirer of her dad's surfing, she used binoculars to watch him excellently maneuvering the board and then later, welcomed him back on the shore with a Coke. Her love for surfing ignited then already, and has only grown stronger since 2016 when she started to master the demands of the sport with her dad as her trainer and later her husband as her trainer also.
A non-negotiable for Karo is her training regime, 2-3 hours every day to maintain the essential combo of strength, cardio, balance and flexibility. She loves and embraces the pressure in her pursuit of excellence and of the World Record.
Mastering the forces of wind, water, currents and injury brilliantly, Karo discovered the importance and value of tenacity and determination on her winning journey. Karo’s message to survivors of abuse carries the strength and inspiration of her incredible humanity, when she said:
“You are not alone. There are those who truly care to protect you. Don’t give up. Allow time to be a partner on your healing journey so you can later understand how even trauma has shaped you into becoming a seasoned and formidable earth dweller.”
Learn more about Karo’s successes on her Social Media Links:
Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/karovantonderSA89
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karo.vantonder
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