58 • The Sunday Times Magazine
The first skier to represent Jamaica at the Winter Olympics
Benjamin Alexander
A Life in the Day
A
lexander, 38, was born and
grew up in Wellingborough,
Northamptonshire. His father,
Keith, is a retired bus driver of
Jamaican heritage; his mother,
Ann, a retired social services
worker, is English. After studying
electrical engineering at Imperial
College London he worked in
finance in Hong Kong, then as
an international DJ. He started
skiing competitively in 2020 and
was ranked 3,748th in the world
last year. Last month he qualified
for the 2022 Winter Olympics,
where he is representing Jamaica
in the men’s giant slalom.I am excited from the
moment I wake up
— it’s very hard to
sleep right now. I start the day with
press-ups. Then I drink lots of
water and coffee before a big bowl
of cornflakes. I don’t have a home
anywhere just now; my belongings
are spread across friends’ houses
from Hong Kong to Jackson Hole
[the US ski resort]. In the run-up
to the Games I was in Zurich.
Even though I am competing in
Beijing, it is still less than six yearsWORDS OF
WISDOMBEST ADVICE
I WAS GIVEN
Accept the suffering
but still have the
pride and passion
to reach your goalADVICE I’D GIVE
Don’t overplay the
downside — people
are often too fear-
averse. Take a risk!WHAT I WISH
I’D KNOWN
The most successful
people in this world are
the hardest-workingsince the first time I clipped on
skis. I don’t have a coach, and
reaching the Winter Olympics
has been a massive gamble costing
more than $100,000. If I hadn’t
reached the qualifying standard
last month and found sponsors, the
debt would have been enormous.
At the start I wore a leather
jacket to race, then I bought a
second-hand Lycra suit that made
me look like Spider-Man. Friends
said that if I had a proper race
suit I would be more aerodynamic
and shave a second off my times.
I joked with them that I was so far
behind I would need to wear 20
race suits to be competitive.
I like to be the first person on
the ski lift in the morning because
that’s when conditions are best.
My favourite lunch on the slopes
is wiener schnitzel, then more
and more downhill runs until
my legs hurt. Training has always
been hard — sometimes I go to
bed at 5pm to recover. When
I began learning to ski in 2016,
I fell over 27 times on an “easy”
green run in Whistler, Canada.
By the end of that day I trimmed
it down to seven falls.A challenge is good for me but
I get bored easily. I was a complete
troublemaker at school, fighting
and being a total nuisance. I learnt
fast, way ahead of everybody else.
Although I came from a working-
class family with limited resources
I was lucky — I won a government
grant to attend a private school
[Wellingborough School].
Later I studied for a degree in
electrical engineering, before a job
in wealth management in Hong
Kong. I DJ’d for friends there
before taking it up as a career.
For years I travelled the world
performing sets, sometimes
earning £3,000 a night. But when
I began skiing I couldn’t do both
and played my last gig in 2018.
I’ve always had this crazy dream
to be in the Olympics. Having
started at 32 I was never going to
make the British team. Instead I
found my father’s birth certificate
and applied for a Jamaican
passport. The country has never
had an Olympic skier — all I had
to do was pick the right event
and make the Olympic standard,
which is lower for nations that
don’t normally qualify.
Jamaica boxes above its weight
in track and field events but black
people rarely feature at the Winter
Games. The Jamaican bobsleigh
team that competed in 1988 was
an exception [portrayed in the film
Cool Runnings]. Dudley Stokes, the
team captain, became my mentor;
the movie is an inspiration.
It was a hard slog qualifying in
time. Giant slalom seemed my
best chance. Last month I came
seventh at the Cape Verde
National Ski Championships in
Lichtenstein, which was just
enough to make the Olympic
standard. I was lucky. Because
of the pandemic there were only
ten competitors in the race.
I’ll be lucky to finish my slalom
run within 20 seconds of the
winner in Beijing, so I’m really not
expecting a spot on the podium.
My story is about encouraging
other athletes from
smaller nations that
anything is possible n
Interview by Jeremy Taylor*