Despite being called the Snow Leopard, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong hails from a dry, savannah town in Ghana where the temperature rarely falls below 72F – and until five years ago he had never seen snow. But the Snow Leopard, is on the prowl for a medal in the 2010 Winter Olympic games. He has drawn a lot of interest as an African skiing in the Olympics. Kwame will participate in the Alpine Slalom race which is scheduled to take place on February 27. He will make history as the first Ghanian skiing in the Winter Olympics.
Quite the athlete, he also represented Ghana in the West African Student Games in tennis. Kwame took ski lessons when he got a job as a receptionist at a ski center. Kwame said that the only thing Africans have to overcome is the cold. I hear you brother.
Dedicated to encouraging Ghanian youth to ski, he founded the Ghanian Winter Olympic Association and is working on building an artificial ski slope in Akuapem Hills, Mamfe, Ghana.
As well as being a professional ski racer Kwame has achieved academic success completing a first degree in Geography and Tourism in Cape Coast University, Ghana. He then went on complete a Masters in Westminster University in Tourism Management. Born in Glasgow, Scotland where his father was completing a doctorate, he grew up in a dusty town an hour from Accra, Ghana where children dream of becoming soccer stars, not Olympic skiers. But, after moving to Britain and finding a job as a receptionist in the Xscape snow dome in Milton Keynes, he discovered he had a knack for hurtling down the artificial slope.
His tale of triumph over the odds has echoes of the Jamaican bobsleigh team, whose appearance at the Calgary Games in 1988 inspired the Hollywood film Cool Runnings.
Nkrumah-Acheampong is determined not to embarrass himself or his country in Vancouver. “I don’t just want to get down, but ski well and not come at the bottom of the table,” he said.
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