MEET YOUR COACHES

DAN WAKEHAM - Dan Wakeham has been the undisputed standard bearer of the British competitive snowboard scene for a long time. His infectious personality and sheer riding ability, capped with his appearance as the first ever British male snowboarder to compete in the 2006 winter Olympics, has set him apart from the rest. Within his first two years of competing on a professional level he was crowned the Europa Cup Champion – the first Brit to achieve this accolade in any snowsport discipline. His success then spread to the World Cup Halfpipe Tour.
 
HAMISH McKNIGHT - Throughout an extensive and varied career as a professional snowboarder Hamish has been fortunate enough to snowboard all over the world and has accomplished so much in many different aspects of snowboarding. For the last 3 years Hamish has worked hard as the Head Coach of the British Freestyle Snowboard Team. Having coached athletes to Europa Cup Tour wins, X-Games Gold, Olympics and future Olympics, as well as numerous British Champs wins, he is fast becoming one of the most respected freestyle snowboard coaches in the world.
 

LESLEY McKENNA - Born in Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland then growing up in Aviemore, Lesley is Scotland’s best know snowboarder and double Olympian. Still the only UK snowboarder to have won a World Cup event or to lead the Halfpipe World Cup standings. Lesley now has 20 years of involvement within multidiscipline highlevel sport and has attained a level of knowledge and experience that places her personal performance and her coaching skills among the worlds best. Lesley is involved in the development of the BASI Snowboard Coaching Scheme, works as the Roxy Junior Team Coach, coaches World Class female riders and also works with the British Junior team.
 
ASH NEWNES - Ash is one of the most well respected coaches in the British snowboard scene and has been riding since the early 90's. Before getting into teaching Ash was a K2 team rider spending the majority of the time riding in various resorts around the world, including New Zealand, France, USA, Andorra and Canada. He is one of only a handful of riders who holds full Equivalence to legally work in France as a Snowboarder. Ash now trains instructors for BASI, Snowsport Scotland and the Irish Association of snowsport Instructors (IASI) and holds full worldwide accreditation from the International Association of Snowsport Instructors (ISIA) and IVSI, the highest levels attainable for instructors and coach's. He also has two Blue Peter badges.
 
AIMEE FULLER - Aimee burst onto the British snowboard scene in 2008 and has quickly gone on to establish herself as one of the most promising up and coming riders in the world. After an amazing 2009 season in which she secured 1st place in both the slopestyle and halfpipe in the junior women category at the Brits she went set her sights on the international TTR competition series. After some superb results Aimee received an invite to compete in the European X games alongside X Games winner Jenny Jones. This topped off what has been a meteoric rise for one of the sports best ambassadors.
 
WILL HUGHES - One of the most experienced riders in the UK, Will Hughes is on his 15th full season in the mountains. Will’s knowledge of all things snowboarding is unequalled, known as one of the UK’s foremost big mountain riders he calls the mountains of Tignes home. But one of Will’s greatest strengths is to be able to turn his hand to any type of riding, not only is he one of the countries best freeriders he can also string together a park run that would embarrass most other riders. Will has just landed himself a place on the global Artec am team proving that there’s a few tricks in the old dog yet.
 
IAN ASHMORE - Where do you start with Ian Ashmore, without doubt one of the UK’s finest kicker and rail riders, his fearless attitude to anything snowboarding sets him apart from the crowd. Co-owner of deathpunk snowboard brand Dalikfodda Ian’s gnarly balls out style earned him a spot at the FIS LG Freeze event at Battersea park. But don’t think Ian’s all knarl, no siree, he’s in his final year of a PHD in theoretical physics and is working with Jorgen Karlsson (Bataleon) to prove the existence of a K particle that unites Einstein and Newtonian laws of physics. Phew.
 
MATT LEIGH - Matt Leigh honed his skills on the dryslope at Sheffield, with the opening of Castleford snowdome he stepped up his riding and became a stalwart member of the Salomon team. One of the original Standing Sideways crew Matt has been at the forefront of the UK dryslope and indoor scenes for the past four or five years. Well known for both his riding and filming skills from the This Is Britain film series. Matt has a super solid bag of tricks and is one of the easiest people to learn rail riding from, a long term member of The Big Bang coaching team.
 
JONNY RUSSELL - The question is where do you start with Jonny Russell, well i’d probably start at the point where you describe him as the most talented rail rider in the UK. Jonny’s underground attitude hides what is a sublime talent making him one of the best urban rail riders in the world. If it can be done on a rail then Jonny Russell can probably do it, if you want to take your rail riding to the next level, hunt Jonny down and get coached by him, no matter how good you are you will learn something new.
 

NOTE - Not all coaches will be at every date.