Olympics 2010: Skiing Solo for a Snowless Nation

Jamaica is not sending a bobsled team to Vancouver for the Winter Games, but the Caribbean nation will be represented by one skier. Several countries will have only one participant in the Olympics, because there are no winter sports to speak of in these tropical lands. Yet sometimes the work of one person keeps the Olympic dream alive.

Errol Kerr

Errol Kerr is the sole Olympian from Jamaica this year. Lack of funding eliminated any other contender. Alpine skier Kerr grew up in Truckee, California, a product of a Jamaican father and an American mother. Kerr's father died when he was 12. His mother is an avid skier who started Kerr on skis when he was four years old. Olympic training on a budget means that Kerr only skis in winter, while better-funded alpine skiers travel to higher slopes or the southern hemisphere to train in the off-season.

You can follow Kerr on Twitter or his blog.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is nicknamed "the Snow Leopard". The alpine skier will be the first ever athlete representing Ghana at the winter Olympics. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland but grew up in Ghana. Nkrumah-Acheampong only learned to ski nine years ago when he got at job at a ski resort in Milton Keynes, England, where he skied on artificial snow. The Snow Leopard did not qualify for the Turin Olympics only because his plane to the qualifiers in Iran was delayed in Amsterdam due to ice on the wings. Nkrumah-Acheampong is active in promoting winter sports in Ghana as well as a charity that builds schools in Ghana and another organization dedicated to saving the snow leopard.

Follow Nkrumah-Acheampong's progress on Facebook, Twitter, or his blog.

Samir Azzimani

Samir Azzimani was born in France to Moroccan parents. He took up skiing at age six during a period of his life as a foster child. The alpine skier will be the sole athlete from Morocco in Vancouver. Azzimani created the Moroccan Olympic Association on his own in 2001, but did not participate in the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 due to insufficient funding. He was not in Turin 2006 due to an injury. But he will be in Vancouver next week to represent Morocco on the slopes.

Follow Azzimani's Olympic adventure on his blog.

Robel Teklemariam

At the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympics Friday, cross-country skier Robel Teklemariam will carry the flag for Ethiopia. He is the first winter Olympian ever from his country. Teklemariam came to the United States at age nine when his mother took a job with the UN in New York City and he fell in love with skiing the first time he tried it. He attended the University of New Hampshire on a full scholarship. This will be Teklemariam's second Olympic competition. He doesn't hold out much hope of winning a medal, but his goals are for the long term -he hopes to get more Ethiopians involved in skiing. Watch Teklemariam training in Ethiopia.

Follow Teklemariam on Twitter, Facebook, or his blog.

Dow Travers

Dow Travers is the first ever winter Olympian from the Cayman Islands. That makes him a national hero in the tiny nation where the highest altitude is 141 feet above sea level! Travers learned to ski during family vacations in Beaver Creek, Colorado. The downhill skier is also a student at Brown University, where he plays on the rugby team and is majoring in geobiology. He has been training in Aspen for the Vancouver Olympics.

Follow Travers on Twitter.

Tucker Murphy

Cross-country skier Tucker Murphy was supposed to be one of two Olympians from Bermuda, but countryman Patrick Singleton failed to qualify, leaving Murphy to carry the flag. Murphy graduated from Dartmouth, where he was on the rowing team as well as the ski team. He is attending Merton College at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. No Bermudan has ever competed in skiing events before at the Olympics.

Leyti Seck

Vancouver will be the second time Leyti Seck represents Senegal all by himself. The 28-year-old alpine skier placed 55th in the Super-G in 2006 and hopes to do better this time around because of a scholarship from Olympic Solidarity that led to improved training opportunities. Seck attends the University of Salzburg in Austria where he can ski year-round. He doesn't expect to win any medals, but is striving  to achieve his personal best and to proudly represent Senegal.

Hubertus von Hohenlohe

Prince Hubertus of Hohenlohe-Langenburg is 51 years old, yet he qualified to represent Mexico as an alpine skier in Vancouver. Born in Mexico, he is a descendant of a royal family from an area that is now part of Germany. Von Hohenlohe grew up in Austria, where he had plenty of opportunity to ski. He now lives in Liechtenstein and holds dual Austrian and Mexican citizenship. The only Mexican athlete in Vancouver this year, von Hohenlohe also skied for Mexico in 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1994. He qualified in 2006, but the Mexican Olympic Committee declined to send any athletes to Turin. Besides skiing, von Hohenlohe is a photographer and records music under the name Andy Himalaya. See a bit of von Hohenlohe's life in this video.