Dan Wakeham
Dan’s had a really good start to the season. He drove out to Davos on New Year’s Day to ride at the O’Neill Evolution (TTR 6* event). This is one of the most prestigious comps worldwide and had a line-up of top international talent. Dan had to qualify at the beginning of the week in both Half-pipe and Quarter-pipe. He came third in his heat in the HP qualis, a massive result for him considering he was up against the likes of former Olympic Gold medalist Gian Simmen. Unfortunately it didn’t go quite so well semis but he managed to turn heads all week.
Straight off the back of Davos, Dan jumped in the car and headed over to Tignes for the Airwaves comp. The prize money is always high and unsurprisingly a lot of the world’s best who have already made the journey across to the O’Neill Evolution are out in force. With confidence high after Davos, Dan stepped it up again and bagged 2nd place, beating the likes of Janne Korpi and fellow team-mate Gary Zebrowski. I won’t spill the beans on his earnings but suffice to say he won enough to get the beers in after. Check out the above shot of him and Gary on the podium with his new board graphic from Head.
Next up is the Burton European Open in Laax which really gets going this week
Zoe Gillings
Zoe has been in Bad Gastein over the weekend where she rode in the first World Cup event for quite a while. Having qualified in 7th Zoe was up against Lindsay Jackobelis in her first knockout stage and unfortunately ended up 3rd. Thanks to her pace in qualifying it meant she finished up 9th. This keeps her world ranking at 6.
Almost all the remaining SBX World Cup season will be crammed into Feb and March but before that it’s the big one: the Winter X Games in Aspen. Zoe travels out in just under 10 days to look to improve on last season’s 7th place. Getting an invite to the World’s most prestigious SBX comp is an honour in itself and having got a taste for it last year Zoe will be up for it no question.
After X Games Zoe will be getting in the Air Miles when she travels back to Leysin and then out to Korea, Japan, the US, Canada and finally Italy for the World Cup tour.
Rebecca Cullum
Becky has started at 6th Form College this year and has been enjoying her diploma in Media Studies, Art and Photography which she’s loving by all accounts. Over the summer she focused on getting as much riding time as possible in New Zealand where she was able to ride with some of the Swiss Team and get some great experience along the way.
Along with Zoe, Becky put in an appearance at the ‘Changing The Game of Women’s Sport’ event in London in November (see above)
Becky has managed to get as much time on snow as possible to train but, as with the rest of the gang, it’s now competition season. Becky is with Dan at the BEO, her first time at a senior level which will be a great experience for her.
Paddy Graham
Paddy has been out in Laax since Christmas where he’s been getting as much time as possible in the pipe. He had a quick trip across to Dublin over New Year to support a retail activity with 53 Degrees North but then it was straight back out to the hills to get the training in.
His main focus at the moment is the US Open at the end of this month. Paddy’s heading over to the States for 3 weeks to ride in the Slopestyle and the Pipe. It’ll be his first visit to Breckenridge but having done so well at the New Zealand Open over the past 2 seasons he’ll be heading over with bags of confidence.
On his return he’ll be straight into the RedBull Playstreets event in Austria before building up to the European Open and then into the Brits where he’ll have 2 titles to defend and a certain team-mate snapping at his heels…
Murray Buchan
Murray’s been back on snow after spending much of the early season handling his school commitments. Since riding in the Saas Fee Ride at the end of the summer he’s had to get his head down now his GCSE year is upon him. He did however make an appearance at the London Ski & Snowboard show and turned heads as always in the demos he was involved with.
He travelled out to Laax on Boxing Day to link up with Paddy before getting himself over to Les Contamines for the weekend’s World Cup Half-pipe event. The comp ran last night with Muz bagging a highly credible 25th in a truly international field.
Murray flies back today and will now be back at school until mid-Feb when he’ll be able to use his half term break to get some time in the mountains.
Murray has also signed with Volkl skis after 6 years with LINE.
Noddy Gowans
After 5 years of hanging out with the best of British ski and snowboard talent Noddy’s finally succumbed to Blighty and traded in his Kiwi passport for a UK one.
As if to celebrate the fact, he’s basing himself in sunny Brighton as opposed to Serre Chevalier this season, with the aim to get as much travelling done as possible. Details are still being planned but Norway is very much on the cards as are a couple of other big mountain ‘missions’ as he likes to call them.
Between this free-ride trips Noddy is also fronting another film project that will see fellow pro-Brits and enthusiasts document their season. After a metre fell in Serre Che last weekend he’s heading out this week to get things moving on that front (and to celebrate being able to travel for the first time in 3 months)
The free-ride comp season took a battering last year for obvious reasons but if the top events get the green light this year there’s little doubt that Nodds will be in amongst it.
Look out for our updates each week and we’ll keep you posted on the big competition news as soon as it comes through
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