FreestyleXtreme Magazine Issue 22 | Page 23

................ ................ Five minutes with... Daan Van Der Linden The versatile Dutch skater is no longer the new rookie on the block; we caught up with him for a chat on a visit to one of Campus’ Bristol skateparks. Images by Max Hurn ................................... What do you think of the Campus setup? Oh, it’s cool, cool park. I mean the space that they had, they made the best out of it, I think. You grew up in Veldhoven in the Netherlands, what was the skate scene like? Oh, small. I mean, it was probably bigger than I had realised at the time - probably because I was that young - but yeah, it was small. Everyone knew each other, and that’s what kind of kept it alive - just ‘cause everyone needed each other there for skateboarding. How young did you get started? Four, four-and-a-half. Something like that, ‘cause I had an older brother that’s two years older than me and, you know around the age you start taking an interest in things - we would play tennis, we would play soccer and like we would do all these sports every week and stuff. My dad is a tennis teacher, professional guy or whatever. And he used to be a soccer professional so I guess he put us onto sport, and then skateboarding was just what we’d do in our neighbourhood. At that time, no one was on their cell phones or computers. The neighbours was super close where I grew up from. It was our time for hanging out after school. u FreestyleXtreme.com | 23