A British-born former DJ is ready to grow to be Jamaica’s first Alpine skier on the Winter Olympics, simply six years after he first took up the game.
Benjamin Alexander, 38, whose father is Jamaican, would be the sole member of Jamaica’s nationwide ski workforce on the Winter Olympic Video games in Beijing subsequent month.
Alexander, who was raised in Wellingborough, close to Northampton, will compete within the large slalom occasion after ending seventh within the self-discipline on the Cape Verde Nationwide Ski Championships in Liechtenstein earlier this week.
The athlete, who turned an internationally famend DJ who performed at main festivals reminiscent of Burning Man within the US, solely started snowboarding in 2015 whereas on vacation in Canada and has no full-time coach.
Alexander, who would be the fifteenth athlete to compete for Jamaica on the Winter Olympics, readily admits that he stands little probability in opposition to the sports activities elites – lots of whom have been snowboarding since they had been toddlers and have invested a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} into their careers over time.
As an alternative, he hopes his inconceivable run evokes others, particularly these from smaller international locations and tropical climates, to chase any alpine desires they’re courageous sufficient to nourish.
Benjamin Alexander, 38, whose father is Jamaican, would be the sole member of Jamaica’s nationwide ski workforce on the Winter Olympic Video games in Beijing subsequent month
Alexander counts Dudley Stokes, the pilot of the Jamaican bobsleigh workforce who competed within the 1988 Olympics, as one among his mentors who retains in contact with day by day.
Stokes’ efforts to qualify for the Olympics had been immortalised within the movie Cool Runnings, and Alexander remembers watching the movie and pondering it was the ‘coolest factor since sliced bread’.
Alexander, who has an English mom and Jamaican father, mentioned that with out pioneers like Stokes, Jamaica might not have competed within the Winter Olympics but and it could make his path to compete ‘extremely tough’.
Alexander wrote on Instagram: ‘I actually hope that my journey will prepared the ground for an entire new technology of athletic expertise from under-represented races and nations in winter sport.’
He advised BBC Sport: ‘They are saying by no means meet your heroes, however Dudley is superior.
‘There are numerous favours that I owe to these heroic efforts of the 1998 workforce. I am designing my race swimsuit and I’d find it irresistible to be a detailed, twenty first century model, of the bobsled [kit]. Credit score the place credit score is due, the saying is we stand on the shoulders of giants and so they had been the giants in my story.’
Dudley Stokes smiles again at his workforce members as they reveal the bobsled pushing kind throughout a sending-off reception for the workforce at a Tokyo lodge on February 4 1998 forward of the Winter Olympics
Alexander solely started snowboarding in 2015 when he skied in Whistler, Canada, the place he had been invited to DJ at a celebration.
‘I simply selected one inexperienced run [the easiest] and I simply saved doing the identical run time and again. The primary time I went on this run I feel I fell 27 instances.
‘I feel I completed on the finish of the day having fallen on that run solely seven instances and for me that was progress.
‘That is simply how I’ve checked out this whole factor. Chipping away one little bit at a time and attempting to get higher every day.’
Alexander later met US skier Gordon Grey in 2019 who advised him his method was ‘atrocious’ but additionally that he could not fathom how Alexander was in a position to sustain with him.
Alexander mentioned: ‘He pulls me apart and says, ‘Benji, I will let you know what I see. Your method is totally atrocious, I’ve by no means seen something worse.
‘However you inform me you’ve got solely skied for 25 days, you’ve got solely had two classes. In fact you do not simply study this extremely technical factor by osmosis, however what I am unable to fathom for the lifetime of me is the way you’re maintaining with me. You are a freaking lunatic, you are fearless. The truth that you are fearless means you might have greater than half the battle gained.”
Alexander, who has an English mom and Jamaican father, mentioned that with out pioneers like Stokes, Jamaica might not have competed within the Winter Olympics but and it could make his path to compete ‘extremely tough’. Pictured: Alexander skies down a slope throughout a coaching session on the Kolasin ski resort on December 21, 2021
Alexander defined: ‘He helped me perceive that it could be inside my attain if I actually utilized myself and devoted myself to it. I have been just about full-time on this mission since.’
Practically three years later, Alexander is competing within the Beijing Winter Olympics this week as the primary Jamaican to compete within the Alpine Snowboarding occasion.
He says that he hopes his expertise exhibits the general public that it would not matter about your background – everybody has a spot in winter sports activities.
‘If I can begin a sport at 32 and get to an Olympics at 38, then there isn’t any excuse for anybody – whether or not they’re 40, 50, 60, to not exit and get some classes and get some enjoyment out of snowboarding,’ he advised Eurosport. ‘It is not too late.’
‘Once I started this mission, it was a very egocentric pursuit – let’s examine the place I can take this for myself,’ Alexander mentioned.
‘Then after the incident that occurred final yr with George Floyd, I’ve obtained a lot consideration and help because of individuals attempting to champion range in winter sports activities.
‘Now, I nearly really feel like I carry this stress to carry out and to do that factor on my shoulders for range in winter sports activities, so it is grow to be a lot larger.
‘I am very excited to be that individual that may present that it would not matter what your background is, socio-economic or race, you might have a spot in winter sports activities.’
‘We are attempting to encourage the following generations,’ Alexander mentioned final month.
Alexander skies down a slope throughout a coaching session on the Kolasin ski resort on December 21, 2021
‘Though chances are you’ll come from Timor, India, or Jamaica, in the event you begin younger and you’ve got perception, then possibly we may be elite international locations in winter sports activities in a technology from now.’
Alexander got here from a working-class background. He advised Olympics.com: ‘My mom, my father and my brother have spent probably the most a part of their working profession both in factories or driving.
‘Not one of the three of them completed highschool with any respectable GCSEs or O-levels.’
However Alexander took a special path and earned a scholarship at a non-public faculty earlier than finding out physics and engineering at Imperial Faculty London.
While finding out, he took up DJing however stop after two years in 2002 after somebody was shot and killed when Alexander was queueing to get right into a London nightclub.
He mentioned: ‘I simply thought to myself that’s absolute stupidity. By day, I’ll mainly be at MIT – I went to the Imperial Faculty of Science, Know-how, Medication to check physics – so by day, I am doing this, and by night time, I am hanging out with individuals which might be attempting to kill one another and I gave up music nearly immediately at that second.’
Alexander then labored in finance in Hong Kong for years, earlier than falling again into DJing. He ended up taking part in on the Burning Man Competition within the US and having a residency in Ibiza.