LLOYD Wallace has crowned a remarkable comeback – and continued a proud family tradition – after being named in the Team GB’s ski and snowboard team for the upcoming Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.

The 22-year-old from Semley, south of Warminster, will become the first male aerial skier since Richard Cobbing in 1998 to represent his country at the Games. His achievement comes a little over five months after he placed in an induced coma for 24 hours after suffering a severe head injury while training in Mettmenstetten, Switzerland last summer.

Wallace was in mid-air, travelling at 40mph and attempting a trick he had tried countless times before, when he was knocked unconscious after losing his balance while approaching a ski jump. He has no recollection of an accident which saw him airlifted to a Zurich hospital.

But the University of Bath sports performance student made a speedy recovery and bravely resumed his bid for the Olympics in October, subsequently collecting enough points during the six-race World Cup series to book his ticket to South Korea.

And next month he will become the third generation of his family to participate at the Games. Wallace’s father, Robin, represented Great Britain at Calgary in 1988, when freestyle was a demonstration sport, while mother Jilly came fourth in the aerials competition at Albertville in 1992 and was also selected for the Olympics in Lillehammer four years later.

His grandfather was also an Olympian and sister Elodie is a member of the current British aerial team.

Although he has received some support from the International Olympic Committee’s funding arm over the past year, Wallace – who trains full-time with the Swiss national squad – has used a crowdfunding site to help him reach his goal.

Wallace, who will celebrate his 23rd birthday during the Games, rounded off his World Cup campaign by finishing 20th in the men’s aerial event in Lake Placid last week.

He will head to PyeongChang with an outside chance of a medal and can take confidence from his performance at Deer Valley in the United States in 2016, when he came seventh and achieved his country’s best World Cup result in more than 20 years. He also finished on the podium at the Junior World Championships in 2015, claiming bronze.

Team GB will take more skiers and snowboarders to a Winter Games than ever before, with 25 selected across all disciplines. More than half of them, Wallace included, will be making their debuts and the average age of the squad is just 24.

Team leader Dan Hunt said: “When you analyse this squad, it’s a pretty good indicator of where British snowsports will be heading over the next four years to Beijing and then beyond.

“We will be competing in more disciplines in PyeongChang than we have before and we’ve never had more athletes heading to an Olympics with genuine expectations about how well their performances will stack up against the best in the world.

“Of course you can never predict how the results will ultimately fall, but I am certain that we’re going to Korea with opportunities to deliver more world class performances than a British ski and snowboard team ever done.”