Dan Wakeham is a British professional snowboarder

Snowboarding

Snowboarding is a sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow on a snowboard attached to a rider's feet using a special boot set onto mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the U.S.A...

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Dan started snowboarding on Plymouth dryslope when he was 14. He was sponsored by Santa Cruz Snowboards by the age of 15 and traveling the country riding the national dryslope tour. When leaving school at the age of 17 he spent his first season in Flaine

Flaine

Flaine is the name of a ski area in the Haute Savoie region of the French Alps, and is a part of the linked Grand Massif domain. It is in the territory of the communes of Magland and Arâches. Flaine is linked to Samoëns, Morillon, Les Carroz and Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval, with 267 km of pistes in total...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 where he worked as a digger in the snowboard park.

In 2003 a decision was made to join the GB team and set his target to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics

2006 Winter Olympics

The 2006 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XX Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event which was celebrated in Turin, Italy from February 10, 2006, through February 26, 2006. This marked the second time Italy hosted the Olympic Winter Games, the first being the VII Olympic Winter...

. In 2004 he signed to Plymouth Nike ACG. In 2006 Wakeham was the first British male to compete in snowboarding at the Winter Olympics in Turin

Turin

Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

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Life on the World Cup Tour wasn't easy with a lack of funding and weak backing from Snowsports GB, the national governing body for snow sports which was poorly run and fell in to administration shortly before the Olympics in Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

. Wakeham retired and set up One Snowboarding with GB Freestyle team coach, Hamish McKnight. Together they run freestlyle snowboard camps and are responsible for the GB junior snowboard team. Wakeham also works for Head Snowboards as the national sales agent and brand manager.

At the age of 29, Wakeham was the first Brit to land double flips in the halfpipe. In 2010 O'Neill

O'Neill (brand)

O'Neill is an American surfboard, surfwear and equipment brand that was started in San Francisco, California, but soon moved down the coast to Santa Cruz. Some credit the company with having invented the modern wetsuit...

signed Wakeham as an ambassador for their brand. In 2011 O'Neill made Wakeham their UK team manager.