From DJ to beijing winter olympics qualification, how does Jamaica's "ski first person" train?

A well-known DJ in the industry, after 6 years of contact with skiing, qualified for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, becoming the first skier to represent Jamaica in the Winter Olympics and the 15th winter Olympic athlete in the history of the country... Jamaican alpine skier Benjamin Alexander (pictured below) has a very telling story. In an exclusive interview with the Global Times reporter on the 17th, Alexander said that for him who was "halfway out of the house", the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics was a "gold medal award ceremony", and he hoped that his story would inspire Chinese who had not tried skiing.

Alexander, who was born in England and whose father was Jamaican, had little to do with the Winter Olympics. Before his first exposure to skiing in Canada in February 2016, Alexander worked in the financial industry before becoming a well-known DJ who has performed in major cities around the world, including Shanghai and Hong Kong. "I retired from the DJ industry at the end of 2018 and I was happy to go to bed early because I found myself starting to have gray hair and had to choose a healthier lifestyle," Alexander told the Global Times, after which he began to devote a lot of energy to skiing.

"I feel like I've done a lot of things I really want to do. Life is short and requires constant experimentation and learning. Despite the wide range from a musical DJ to a skier, for Alexander, skiing was "the next thing in his life." As a skier who started at the age of 32, Alexander did not have a full-time coach, and he trained through the form of "buying lessons" across Europe. Earlier this month, Alexander finished 7th in the Giant Slalom event at the National Ski Championships in Liechtenstein and finally received a ticket to the Beijing Winter Olympics. According to the official website of the International Olympic Committee, in order to encourage athletes from different countries to participate in the Olympic Games, the IOC allows each country to send one male and female athletes to participate in the competition according to the B-level standard, provided that the athletes can show a certain level of professionalism. Earlier, Jamaican Prime Minister Holness congratulated Alexander on social media on his breakthrough.

For Alexander, being able to participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics was already a victory. "I've got my gold medal, that's the Qualification for the Winter Olympics, and my gold medal ceremony is the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics," Alexander admits, admitting that he can't compete with professional athletes who have been training for many years, "We are participating in a completely different race, as if they are participating in F1, I am just playing karting". Alexander told the Global Times reporter that he had not yet come to Beijing, and he expected to be able to tour Beijing after the game, "I just got the new crown vaccine booster injection, I don't worry about health problems, if I can look around in Beijing, it would be better."

In Alexander's view, Jamaica not only brought reggae music and Bob Marley (the originator of reggae music) to the world, but also the birth of many Olympians. "We have the fastest runner on the planet and Jamaicans are proud of what they have achieved at the Olympics and I am proud of what I have done."

"I know China wants to get 300 million people in winter sports. I hope my story inspires people, especially those Chinese who haven't tried skiing yet. "I want to tell people that if you didn't learn to ski as a kid it doesn't matter, you can still enjoy the sport – I can start skiing at 32 and be on the world stage in 6 years, then you can too." ”

Source: Global Times