America's Cup: Power People - Marius van der Pol – Soldier to Cyclor

Emirates Team New Zealand sail their AC 37 race boat Taihoro in Barcelona © James Somerset/Emirates Team NZ

Outrageously physically demanding, the role of Cyclor on an AC75 is one of the hardest positions in any sport. Add in the heat and humidity of Barcelona plus the huge demands required to control the sail and mast functions of an AC75 and only the fittest athletes on the planet need apply.

Marius Van Der Pol is exactly that. A former soldier and member of the 1st New Zealand Special Air Service, Marius epitomises the modern-day cyclor in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup but his modesty is infectious: “I’m not an athlete, I just like training,” he says. However it was a stunning time in the Cambridge Indoor Rowing Championships back in 2018 where he scored a national record of 1 minute and 14 seconds that led to the America’s Cup.

A family friend heard that Emirates Team New Zealand were trialling for their grinding squad, and recommended Marius give it a go, and so he dropped Kevin Shoebridge and Blair Tuke an email highlighting the new NZ record time and before long he was on the trials in 2019 for a spot on the boat in Auckland at AC36.

Straight after that successful defence, Marius switched from the arm-intensity of grinding to cycling as cyclors were announced for the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup and again he aced the trials in 2022 and joined Emirates Team New Zealand’s elite power squad of nine athletes for the defence of the Cup in Barcelona. That transition has been intense as Marius says: “From grinding in AC36, the total volume has increased a lot. A long training session grinding would be 2.5 hours, now a long session on the bike is between 4 to 6 hours. In terms of power demand, everything has increased, there is a demand for high flat power output but also to have the ability to push max numbers for short intervals in a race. We have gone from having eight guys powering the boat in AC36 to four for AC37, we can push more with our legs, but the demand is now higher with only four guys working. You can never supply the boat with too much.”

Marius van der Pol has re-signed with Emirates Team New Zealand - photo © Emirates Team NZ

Training through the high summer in August has been tough for all the cyclors with the power demands so high. For the Emirates Team New Zealand squad, they’ve been taking every opportunity to keep cool with Marius describing it, saying: “Cold showers and ice baths prior to heading out, combined with ice vests and rugby socks stuffed with ice shoved down the back of our lifejackets! One of the guys lost 4kgs in two hours while doing a session in a shipping container which is not a dissimilar environment to the cyclor cockpits on the AC75 in terms of heat and airflow. We usually try to cap a sailing block to 30 minutes to allow time to cool down and rehydrate before starting the next block.”

Understanding just what their athletic environment is like is tough for anyone watching from the outside. Marius puts it brilliantly saying: “It's basically like being on a stationary bike with no wind flow, someone changing the resistance constantly, grinding through knowing that no matter how much you give, the boat will always want more while being thrown from side to side! The pre-start is where we are pushed the hardest in order to provide the guys sailing the boat freedom to throw the boat around to secure a solid position crossing the start line, the rest of the race you are just holding on and giving whatever you have left.”

With so much head-down effort required plus the demand from the designers and sailors to stay as aero as possible during the race, do the cyclors have any time to appreciate the context of each desperately close race? Marius is purely focussed saying: “Not so much during a race, but you can to a degree create a mental picture of what is going on by listening to the comms onboard but for the most part it is focussing on what you can control and putting out.”

With Barcelona capable of throwing up all manner of conditions depending on the day, the demands on the cyclors can vary hugely as Marius explained: “The pre-start, nine times out of ten, will be the hardest part of a race. The power demanded by the boat is also heavily dictated by the conditions. A flat sea state with a constant breeze will mean it’s easy to get and stay locked in, whereas a dynamic day with swell and gusts means more movement of the sails resulting in the workload jacking up for the cyclors.”

And how do the cyclors warm-down? The days of a burger and beer are long gone for these elite athletes as Marius explains: “You warm down to a degree with dropping the mainsail and prepping the AC75 for tow back to the dock, then smashing electrolyte slushies and food, followed by a 20-minute recovery spin.”

They’re physically the hardest working crew-members in the Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup and all aiming for peak physical condition come racing at the third and final Preliminary Regatta starting in Barcelona on the 22ndAugust. Tough guys, tough work.