Lloyd Wallace is a skier and former gymnast who competes with the British Freestyle Aerial Squad.
Freestyle skiing runs in the family for Lloyd Wallace. Both his parents are former Olympic freestyle skiers, while his younger sister Elodie is also part of the British aerial ski team. Wallace took up skiing aged five, alongside county gymnastics where he competed at a national level. Aged 14, he switched his focus from gymnastics to aerial freestyle skiing and now trains full time with the Swiss Ski Team.
In 2015, Wallace began to get a taste for winning, with a 1st & a 2nd place as well as four top-20 results at World Cup, finishing 11th at the final. He also achieved bronze at the Junior World Championships in Valmalenco, hoping to build on this as he moved towards the Adult World Championships.
He is planning on becoming the first British male aerial skier to compete at an Olympics since 1998. To achieve this, he must be within the top 25 in the world by the time PyeongChang comes around. He is currently ranked at 21, so needs to be careful to hold onto this place.
This is particularly impressive that just a few months ago, in August of this year, it had looked like his Olympic hopes may be over. A horrific crash in a practice session ended up with Wallace having to be placed in an induced coma. However, despite suffering a serious concussion and requiring a few months of rehabilitation off the slopes, Wallace is now fully focused on PyeongChang 2018 once again. If that’s not fighting spirit we don’t know what is!