Halifax slope was where it began for snowboard stars
AFTER WATCHING his cousin Katie Ormerod compete in the Beijing Winter Olympics, snowboarder Jamie Nicholls reflected on where it all began for the both of them, at Halifax Ski and Snowboard Centre.
Nicholls is hoping to compete at the 2026 Games and feels positively about his journey from West Yorkshire to sixth place at the Sochi Games in 2014.
Yorkshire has benefited from increased funding received by GB Snowsport from the National Lottery and UK Sport, the national funding body for Olympic and Paralympic sport.
Recalling the coaching influence that helped him get started, Jamie said: “I started off snowboarding at Halifax Ski and Snowboard Centre at the age of seven, and I was very quickly introduced to something of a legend of the slope in Wayne Taylor.
“Once I’d passed my lessons on the small slope I went straight onto the big slope and started doing grabs and tricks off the jumps. When I met
Wayne, he guided me from that young age, he saw how eager I was to learn.
“He helped ground me, as he helped me learn how to ride switch first before I started just going off the jumps spinning, even though at that stage that’s all I really wanted to do. Wayne was part of that really great network of people around me who helped support me and keep me level-headed. That coaching support set me up on the right path to go to the Olympics.”
Despite his potential being clear from a young age, Nicholls feels that Wayne’s genuine passion for the sport was his motivation for guiding him as he developed. He said: “It wasn’t that he thought about big competitions coming up, or anything like that. He just saw how much I enjoyed it, and wanted to coach me to get as many things right as possible.
“I practiced here every evening, and great coaching is about teaching an athlete perseverance, so they won’t be discouraged, and they’ll want to keep going to get to their best.”
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