Dan, what have you been up to since
the winter season ended?
I had two months off to relax and then it
was back on with the travelling.
I went to Mt. Hood in the USA for 3 weeks
in june for some summer riding. I went out
there with the British team to train, at the
end there was a contest which I placed 1st
in, see: http://mthoodusa.blogspot.com/2006/06/mt-hood.shtml
Then I went to Austria to a product test for
all of the British snowboard magazines. I
work for a distribution company called seventwenty,
I am the team manager for Grenade gloves and
Essa clothing, so I had to go out there to
sort products out. From there I flew out to
Norway to meet up with the Nike ACG team to
film for their dvd and now I am home for two
weeks before I fly out to Switzerland to coach
on the british development selection camp,
then I think it is on to New Zealand.
You must be away from home a lot.
Do you like the travelling aspect of being
a snowboarder?
Yeah, I only get to spend about 3-4 months
of the year at home, that doesn’t bother
me too much but sometimes I get burned out
on the travelling and it can ruin the fun
in snowboarding and that makes me just want
to go home.
Ok, let’s talk about the Olympics. First
of all congratulations on a sick pipe run,
what was that double corked thing all about
at the end? Was that planned or was it a question
of a bit too much pop, or fuck it I’ll
try it and see? I have answered this question so
many times that you are better off taking
it from here: http://meandtheolympics.blogspot.com/
Alright we'll leave readers to check
that out for themselves! How hard was it to
qualify for the Olympics?
The hardest part of my whole Olympic experience
was the whole build up towards the games and
the pressure to actually make the qualification.
The qualification was to make two top 25th
positions in world cup events and then earn
120 FIS points. The top 25 positions wasn’t
too hard but it seemed to be really hard to
make the points. It wasn’t until the
penultimate world cup that I actually made
the qualification.
At this point I had only really been competing
for about three years and only two years in
FIS. The previous year I had won the whole
Europa Cup series and had earned my own world
cup spot, so I could compete in every world
cup, which gave me the best chance possible
to qualify.
The world cups are a big step up from the
Europa cups and at first it was very intimidating
to compete along side the snowboarders that
you watch in the videos and respect.
As the season progressed I started to relax
in to the vibe and actually make friends with
the top snowboarders and let me tell you,
when you ride along side people of such a
high level it can't help but make you step
up the pace of your own personal progression.
As I went in to the last few events of the
qualification period my results climbed up
and up until the Leysin world cup where I
placed 5th, which meant that I had over succeeded
the quota for qualification. That was it,
that was the point where I let out a big sigh
of relief and realised that all of that hard
work had been worth it. I was on my way to
represent my nation in the Olympic games!
Tell us about your experience in Turin
then...
We were based in the Olympic village Bardoneccia,
which only hosted a few events.
The vibe in the village was very mellow, we
had free food 24 hours a day, internet, games
rooms, and afternoon entertainment. We rode
the pipe for five days and I worked on my
competition runs and general consistency.
The week went fast and before I knew it the
day was upon me...
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