Early Season Promise for Dan Wakeham

Dan Wakeham's nerve was tested this weekend by bad luck and poor conditions in Saas Fee for the opening Nokia FIS World Cup Half-pipe of the season. However, Dan can be more than pleased with what he has achieved over the past few days.

The FIS had scheduled a double-header mindful of the fact that this is the only weekend of World Cup competition before the World Championships in Arosa (20th January). This meant the riders had at least two days of competition to look forward to. In the first, Dan had to contend with a disappointing 37th position, having fallen in both his qualifying runs.

However, Dan's second day of competition (Friday) saw him back to form as he put down some really competitive runs in qualifying. In fact, his best score of 33.1 was good enough to qualify him in 3rd place in his heat and guarantee him a spot in the finals on Saturday.

Dan was very much looking forward to going head to head with the likes of Risto Mattilla and Marrku Koski on Saturday but woke to find high winds had closed the mountain. It was a real blow to contend with as Dan had seemingly been guaranteed at least a top 12 finish at the event a day earlier but the results were scrapped altogether with the cancellation of the finals.

Needless to say, Dan is upbeat about his performance. Amongst a highly competitive field he has once again underlined his credentials. According to Dan “it was a good start for the competitive season for me and it has filled me with confidence as I go in to my next event which is the world championships”.