Ghana’s first skier off to the Olympics

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Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong (pictured) was born in the Scottish city of Glasgow, but he grew up in Accra, Ghana. That never stopped him from dreaming of becoming a professional skier. He honed his skills on an artificial slope in Britain. And now, the “snow leopard” as he’s known will be Ghana’s one-man ski team next year at the Vancouver Winter Games. The World’s Alex Gallafent tells us more.

Watch the Snow Leopard in action:

• Ghana Ski Team

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MARCO WERMAN: This is The World. I’m Marco Werman. Every time the Olympic Games roll around there’s usually one or two competitors who are just a bit surprising – fish out of water. Take the famous Jamaican bobsled team who took part in the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. Well the next winter games get underway 101 days from now in Vancouver and there will be another unusual participant but he won’t be there just to make up the numbers as The World’s Alex Gallafent reports.

ALEX GALLAFENT: Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is a slalom skier. He happens to be from Ghana. Not a lot of snow there. But he happens to love throwing himself down snow-covered mountains at high speed.

KWAME NKRUMAH-ACHEAMPONG: Unless you’ve been at the top of a giant slalom or super [PH] G course looking down and looking at the slick slope, all the gates, and everybody looking in your face, waiting to see what you can do, it’s really hard to understand why people go into ski races when they know they can break their legs, their necks, their back. It’s just a wonderful sport.

GALLAFENT: And Acheampong is good at it. He’s just qualified to represent Ghana at next year’s Olympics – the country’s first representative at the winter games. Oh and he only started skiing six years ago.

ACHEAMPONG: I got a job at the indoor ski center, picked up a pair of snowblades and had a go.

GALLAFENT: That indoor ski center was in the UK, the country where Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong lives today. He’d left Ghana to pursue a master’s degree in tourism management but school was expensive. He had to get a job. Working as a receptionist at a sport’s center seemed a good fit. Free indoor skiing was a bonus.

ACHEAMPONG: I just did it for the fun of doing it. [INDISCERNIBLE] every staff member who worked there. So I just had a go. And it’s kind of snowballed and I find myself heading to Vancouver.

EDDIE EDWARDS: I just think he should go there and enjoy every minute of it.

GALLAFENT: That’s Eddie Edwards also in the UK. Over two decades ago he captured the world’s attention at the Calgary games. Eddie Edwards was known as the Eagle. In regular life Edwards worked as a plasterer. He still does in fact. But at the Olympics his quixotic mission was to excel at the ski jump. He didn’t. Eddie the Eagle Edwards was depending on your perspective a hero of amateurs everywhere of simply the worst ski jumper ever to appear at the Olympics.

EDWARDS: There were those who thought this is great and that was exemplifying the whole Olympic spirit. And there were those who felt I wasn’t an athlete and shouldn’t have been there.

GALLAFENT: Eddie Edwards expects Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong will get the same kinds of reaction in Vancouver.

EDWARDS: I think he knows and everybody else knows that I don’t think he’s going to win a medal or go even close. But he should go out there and enjoy the whole experience of being in the Olympics and do the best he can. That’s all everybody can expect of him and just enjoy it really.

GALLAFENT: But hold on says the Ghanaian skier who has a nickname of his own – the snow leopard.

ACHEAMPONG: I think Eddie the Eagle let the whole fun side of what he was doing take over you know what he was trying to achieve and instead of being looked upon as a professional sports person he became a joke.

GALLAFENT: Ouch. The snow leopard isn’t messing around here. When he has the funding he trains in the Italian Alps and he’s far from the worst Olympic level skier around. Still Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong is realistic about his Olympic chances.

ACHEAMPONG: I can’t win the races I go into. [INDISCERNIBLE] tough. So skiing is a sport which just has an endless challenge for me. And I don’t want to look at the final table of athletes and see myself at the bottom. I’d want at least five other athletes to be behind me.

GALLAFENT: You wouldn’t bet against him. For The World I’m Alex Gallafent.

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