GG Bakker

Lisa Bakker teaches kitesurfing out of a container school on the Zeeland coast, chases wind forecasts the way other people check the news, and drives a van that will smell of neoprene for the rest of its life. Winters she pours drinks in a ski-season bar and counts the days back to the water. Backgammon came off the surf school's rainy-day shelf, and she plays it exactly as she rides: read the conditions, commit fully, chase the biggest move on offer. She throws the cube into the wind, backs herself in every position, and laughs off a bad roll the way she laughs off a wipeout. The club asked her to be one of its faces last season. She did the shoot, hated every frame of it, and has not yet said no to the second one. She backs herself at the cash tables exactly as she backs herself on the water, chasing the biggest swing on offer rather than the safe one.