Lennart Neubauer was ten years old when he discovered windsurfing. Today he lives a life between freedom, pressure to perform and wind forecasts. He talks about his love of sport, mindfulness and mental health in the WELT podcast WELTMeister.
The temperature difference couldn’t be greater. It was just under 22 degrees when he landed in Cape Town on Monday afternoon. Blue sky, the sun is shining – a contrast to wintry Germany. Lennart Neubauer was invited to spend a few days at the “boot” in Düsseldorf, the world’s most important boat and water sports trade fair. It is also a meeting point for the international surfing and trend sports scene.
Neubauer, 21 years old, is a windsurfer – and world champion. He won the title in the freestyle discipline in 2024. “It was pretty clear to me from the first year I started surfing that I wanted to become world champion at some point,” says Neubauer as a guest in the new episode of the WELTMeister podcast.
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It may be a cliché, but Neubauer looks how many people imagine a surfer to look: Longer, sun-bleached hair, tanned, hoodie on, baseball cap on – and a chain around his neck. He maintains this image. But why not?
Born in Bremen, grew up in Naxos
German mother, Greek father – Neubauer was born in Bremen, but grew up on Naxos, one of the Greek Cyclades islands. He starts exercising early and tries it out. High jump, long jump, soccer, basketball and volleyball. He quickly realizes that he finds it cool to perform under pressure. That, he says, is exactly his thing.
He was ten years old when he finally discovered the sport “that for me is the best sport of all time” – windsurfing. Because his mother doesn’t feel like redeeming a voucher for six surfing lessons, her son tries it out – and likes it. Thanks to his strong ambition and great desire for competitions, “in which I love competing because I know that it’s not just about good technique and good fitness, but also a lot about mental strength,” Neubauer gets better and better over the years.
He is only on Naxos for two or three months of the year. Otherwise, he travels to competitions – or follows the wind for training. And that’s ideal these days in Cape Town, but not always, which is why a daily plan has to be changed at short notice.
“If I see that there is good wind throughout the day, I go out on the water from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Then I take a break – and go out again from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. In the meantime, I stretch, eat something and rest,” says Neubauer. Windsurfing, he adds, is physically demanding “because it puts a lot of strain on the arms, back and legs.”
If there is no wind, Neubauer trains in the gym – or spends time with his girlfriend, who also surfs and is currently staying with him in Cape Town. You share the flat with a friend. The trio lives very consciously and subordinates almost everything to sport. “Our evenings are not long because there is no other way. You can’t stay up until midnight and then expect to perform the next day. That’s not possible,” says Neubauer. As cool as he would find it to spend time in the evenings with friends and like-minded people on the sidelines of surfing events. But lavish parties are not his thing. You have to know when it’s over.
He won the world title he always dreamed of on Sylt. He won the first competition on Fuerteventura, where the world elite had previously surfed. Luckily, because there was no wind on Sylt and the competition judges didn’t want to wait longer than a week for sufficient wind, in the end only the first score counted.
“At first it felt a bit strange, but the World Cup in Fuerteventura is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, that there is currently in terms of conditions. I was world champion, but at the beginning I didn’t feel what I had hoped to feel. But the thought quickly disappeared – and I was happy,” says Neubauer – and adds something important to him: “I am of the opinion that many athletes don’t enjoy their moment and always jump from one moment to the next – and that’s what I wanted I really wanted to do it and realize it. I was happy that I had achieved it. But I immediately set myself the goal of doing it again with two or three more events.” In 2025, a year after his World Cup triumph, he came second.
Windsurfing, Neubauer repeatedly emphasizes, is his life. “I could never do an office job. That’s what I’m saying now. Maybe it sounds strange. But my goal in life is to earn money with the sport that I love so much. … But who knows what I want to do in nine years, when I’m 30. Then maybe it’ll be the 9-to-5 job to support myself and my family. But I definitely know that what I’m doing at the moment is very fulfilling for me,” says Neubauer, who has a few sponsors. He drives for Red Bull, and Blackroll is also a partner.
Neubauer, who initially rode for Greece, then for Germany and for five years again for Greece, can make a living from surfing, something that only a few can do. It’s prize money, it’s sponsorship money.
Hard work and ambition are what shape him – and led to the World Cup title. At just 21 years old, he represents a generation that knows what it wants. Neubauer is reflective. What did he realize for himself? “The fact that many things are primarily about the mental. Being physically good is one thing, but what matters most is how clear your head is. … Mental health is very important,” says Neubauer.
Of course he can understand people who think: What problems should someone who lives and surfs in Cape Town have? “That sounds like the perfect life. Exactly. But many people underestimate the fact that even athletes who show the perfect day on Instagram also have bad days. We have just as many difficulties as everyone else. And I think it’s important to address that.”
LaGa
