Denise de Haan is the Cable Wakeboard World Champion 2008. Her favorite saying fits well with the history of how she got so far.
‘It’s hot today. Not normal,’ says Denise de Haan, the 21-year-old cable wakeboarder from Almere, Netherlands. Denise likes to say ‘not normal’. That at the WC her last heat took place at 12 pm and then her having to wait until 9 pm for the result was ‘not normal’. The luxurious and opulent breakfast buffet she was invited to by the Philippine government after her triumph was ‘So good it wasn’t normal.’Tough girl with an angel's face
When talking about things that aren’t normal, for example the will power, the hours of lonely training, the enormous belief she has in herself, which made her the Cable Wakeboard World Champion 2008 on July 6, she’s much more reserved.
From career break to career highlight
A few months ago her doctors advised her to concentrate on more modest goals. ‘Be glad that you can walk without pain,’ they said back then. Following a complicated cruciate knee ligament rupture, nobody believed in her comeback. But Denise (‘To be a winner you must plan to win, prepare to win and expect to win’) didn’t want to spend the rest of her life doing her second hobby of playing Playstation games. And worked doubly hard on getting back to the top of the world rankings.
Doubts up to the last minute
At the World Championships they made her wait right up to the last minute. ‘I knew I’d ridden well,’ Denise said, ‘but you never know with the jury. On the podium I had to pull myself together to avoid bawling my eyes out and getting tongue-tied in English.’ How the ensuing victory party with her friends turned out, she described as being ‘So crazy, it wasn’t normal.’
Denise de Haan
Denise de Haan
