Lloyd Wallace doesn’t need to look too far for inspiration when he’s back home training in the gym.
Wallace, a sports performance student at the University of Bath, is surrounded by Olympic alumni, with Sochi skeleton gold medallist Lizzie Yarnold one of his gym buddies.
But the 21-year old aerial skier is determined to make a name for himself and follow in the ski tracks of his Olympic parents next year.
Wallace needs to establish himself in the world’s top 25 to secure qualification to next year’s Olympics in PyeongChang - meaning every competition becomes invaluable in the quest for ranking points.
It’s two years since he won bronze at the world junior championships but he has made a solid transition to the senior ranks, spending last summer training with the Swiss team in Zurich.
He recorded his first World Cup top ten finish with a seventh place in Deer Valley 12 months ago and has recorded regular top 20 finishes this season, including a 16th place in Lake Placid last month.
“Last season was pretty tough because I had to get used to doing the big tricks week in, week out,” said Wallace, who will be aiming to better his previous best of 15th at the World Championships later this month.
"I’ve got to keep pushing the difficulty of the tricks and also work on my consistency. I’m feeling confident about qualifying for the Olympics and it would be nice to do it this season.
“My seventh place last season came as a bit of a shock, especially I was jumping really horribly that week. I squeeked into the finals and then produced probably the best jump of my life.
“You can have the best week of training in your life but in the World Cup you have one jump to make it to the finals and it’s so easy to fluff it.
“The Olympics is my life’s dream and getting there would be amazing but I’m no longer the British guy who rocks up and falls over.”
Wallace’s parents both represented Great Britain at the Olympics. Mother Jilly Curry Won 29 World Cup medals in freestyle skiing between 1987 and 1994, including three World Cup golds, finishing fourth at the aerials competition at the 1992 Games in Albertville.
“My parents were fed up with me having so much energy at home so they sent me off to gymnastics to do some flips and stuff,” added Wallace.
“I was training up to 16 hours a week when I was ten years old at gymnastics. But after a while, I’d had enough and I wanted to try other sports
“I’d been skiing all my life and my parents let me have a go at aerial skiing when I was about 14 and was hooked.”
Sportsbeat 2017