Interview Dani C.

Daniel CostandacheI was born in St. Moritz on the 5th of February 1977. At the nurseryeveryone told my mother that her son (me) will become a greathockeyplayer because of my broad shoulders!My whole family were very sportive, so as soon as I could walk, Istarted skiing and also tried ice skating. On the 24th ofFebruary 1980 my younger sister Nicole was born. In the same winter, inSkiclass, I participated in the first race of my life and won it!2 years later, my mother, my sister and I moved to Klosters, aSmall rich village where not much really goes on! ButThere I had a best friend- we were doing everything together. I basically almostLived in his house with his whole family. His dad was a hockeyplayer soHe taught us how to play hockey. He thought it was too dangerous for usto play on the public hockeyfield; so he made us our ownHockeyfield!Every minute that we weren’t at school we passed our time on that fieldand played hockey until late at the night. I never really found anything interesting in school;I was just there because I had to go. I was always sureThat later I’ll become someone important in sports, but would never work in anOffice! Although, even until this point in the present, I had no idea that I would have made a career being a professional snowboarder, because at that time my dream was always to play in the NHL or play tennis in Wimbledon!Then in the winter of 1990- 91, something new entered my life, which changedAll my plans! My friend and I decided to try to ride on a normal wavesurfboardwith straps on powder. We loved it! So we tried some other strangestuff: swingboards, monoski and than finally we tried snowboards.Everybody in town thought: “What the hell are they doing? Riding thatsuper strange board?“ We went on with it anyway. In 1992 there was a nearby snowboarding contest in Lenzerheide I was wondering howgood I really was, and why not try it. I was super nervous; but in the end I won!Then the time came when I had to make some decisions as to what I would do next. I had finished school already. I knew that I was too late with tennis; in hockey I would have to train a lot, and wouldn’t allow mw to do any snowboarding. So, in the end, I chose snowboarding! But the problem was, I was 16 years old with no money and no job. My mother told me that I have to learn something first, achieve it, and only then can I snowboard as much as I wanted to. So, I did what my mother suggested, and I studiedArchitecture. In the four years of my apprenticeship I was snowboarding asmuch as I could but, unfortunately, I couldn’t progress because I didn’t have many days off to train and to go to every contest. Although, at least I was able to enter a few contests and became better and better. Finally I finished myApprenticeship and started to invest my time fully in snowboarding. The beginning was hard because I was a nobody and my sponsors didn’t pay me enough that I could live off of snowboarding. But I was lucky that my mother and my grandmother helped me to survive. I got even luckier when I won a big jump-contest in Geneva and I won my firstContinental Open in Schönried! After that I gained quite a few more sponsors! Iwas getting into the Nitro International Team. That was the time that Iwas preparing myself to go to the Olympic Games in Nagano. But even though Imade all the trials and was second on the trial lest of Switzerland, they pulled me out of the Olympic Team, because of the problems between the FIS and the ISF.But, nevertheless, during the same winter I won my first ISF World Cup inOberstdorf!The summer was coming and I was looking for some new sponsors. O‘neillwas really interested in me. It was around the same time that I was really into surfboarding and liking it very much. So O‘neill was the perfect sponsor because they have great surfing stuff.After that winter, in 98 – 99, I decided to take a break from the ISF Tour. I was stillcompeting, but I started on the bigger ones, and did a little bit more shooting!The reason why Î decided this was because I started thinking that I didn’t particularly like the way it was and still is! Because the people who organize the contests have no idea of snowboarding and they don‘t care about the Riders.So in the September of 99 I had this idea from the sb – jam! The ideawas , and is still, that i will invite a couple of Riders to Davos,Build a pipe, a couple of Kickers and some Handrails and make a bigJam session for everybody! The most important thing was that all theriders were happy! I had some good luck; some sponsors liked this idea andgave me money and trusted me! It was also great timing because one week before the sb-jam, I had won my first ISF World Cup in Grindelwald, so the press was alsogetting interested me as my winnings!The 1st sb – jam was the most stressful time Have ever had in my whole life!But the important thing happened, and that was that all the Riders went home happy!Surfing was then becoming more important, and all the times when i wasn‘ton the snow, I tried to go surfing, even though that was just 4 weeks a year!I started to get into more jump contests and city events and I reallystarted to like it!Then last summer ( 2000) a big change was came into my life. I was notreally happy with Nitro anymore, so I stopped my contract with them. I was looking for a new sponsor which had where i was looking for, was notimportent about the money it was mutch more importent about theatmosphare in the Team and good team manager! So i signed with SantaCruz, because ther was everything where i was looking for! Totally happywith my new Sponsor i was going to next season.the last season was inone way super good, because i was doing pretty well at the most Contestwhere i Compete, and my sb – jam was going bigger than i was thinking(morethan 5000 people was coming to watch it) But in the other way i wasalmost burning out before the season really started, it was just tomutch to do the hole time. So than the time was coming in the February2001 when i heart my self with filming and i was of for 3 months. For mywas this Time of good, because i start to think about my self and wasis important for my, and in 3 months you can think a lot!I was going surfing to a couple different spot and train a lot to getagain power in my legs and i was getting really hot again to gosnowboarding! So end of June i started again and everything was holdingand must important thing was that everything in me head was clear again!So i was start to filming for my 2 parts and finished them and going toa promo Tour to the states!My goals for this year is of course the Olympics, than i am so happy thati am back on snow, so i will snowboarding so much i can, go filmingagain and try to spend more Time in the States that i get some shootsover ther also! But still the most important thing for this year is,that i am not get burnout again, and i never lose my fun onsnowboarding!Dani Costandache