Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong – The Snow Leopard

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.

Huge Rising Star

Marvadene Anderson, the world's tallest teenage girl, has become a basketball star at Rutgers; not Rutgers University, Rutgers Prep. This up-and-coming New Jersey high school basketball player is only 16 and stands 6-foot-11, and is still growing.

The Jamaican-born hoopster is taller than legendary ballplayers like Michael Jordan (6-6) and LeBron James (6-8). She was the highest-scoring "netball" player (a sport similar to basketball) in her native Jamaica.

That on-court basketball prowess earned her a scholarship to Rutgers Prep and for the last two months she's been hitting the hardwood to learn the rules of basketball.
"Everyone has come up to me and asked if I play college basketball. I tell them I'm only a sophomore in high school."

Marvadene Anderson, whose family remained in Jamaica, got her nickname "Bubbles" because of her good humor. The biggest problem "Bubbles" seems to have is adjusting to the cold weather and finding clothes and shoes to fit her 210-pound frame and size-12 feet.

Back home in Jamaica she was teased a lot. They called her "baby giant because her older sister, Kimberly is 6-foot-4. They also called them "the twin towers". But she said the rudest thing anybody ever said about her height was that she would not be able to find a husband.

Rutgers Prep coach Mary Coyle-Klinger and her sister, former WNBA coach Pat Coyle, have been working with their new star. Anderson picked up six points in her first game on December 10. She is going to be a star. She's only been playing two months and it's amazing how well she has adapted.

Jamaican Jam and Sweep in Olympic Women's 100 Meters

When it comes to the Beijing Olympic sprints, nobody does it better than the Jamaicans. Yeah, mon, the Caribbean island of 2.8 million people capped the first gold-medal sweep of men's and women's 100-meter dashes since 1912 with a rare 1-2-2 sweep of the women's race. After never winning Olympic gold in the 100, Jamaica got two in as many days.

Shelly-Ann Fraser won the women's 100 meter dash Sunday, pumping her fist as she was clocked in 10.78 seconds. Teammates Sherone Simpson and Kerron Stewart finished in a dead heat for the silver, 0.20 second back - the same margin Jamaica's Usain Bolt won by Friday night when won the men’s 100 meter dash in a world record time of 9.69.

Fraser smiled wide, showing her braces, and then went to pick up the green, yellow and black Jamaican flag. It was the widest margin of victory in an Olympic women's 100 final since 1988, when Florence Griffith-Joyner set the world record. After she crossed the finish line more than a body length in the lead, reggae music played in the background during a three-minute delay while judges looked at the photo finish to determine second place. There was no way to split the difference, so Jamaica got the top three spots and didn't even have to settle for a bronze.

Jamaica's big win turned into a giant disappointment for the United States. Lauryn Williams finished fourth, Muna Lee fifth and Torri Edwards last. Making it even more impressive is that the woman widely considered Jamaica's best at this distance, defending world champion Veronica Campbell-Brown, wasn't even in the field, after failing to qualify at the country's Olympic trials.

Her spot went to Fraser, the least accomplished of the Jamaican sprinters - at least until now. She is only 21 and didn't have a time under 11 seconds before this year. The highlight on her resume before now was the silver medal she won as part of the Jamaican relay team at last year's world championships.

Speaking of relays - it's not hard to pick a favorite for that women's 400 relay Friday. Jamaica won the gold medal at the Athens Olympics four years ago, though it was hard to know whether Jamaica was truly the fastest team because Williams and Marion Jones botched their handoff and the traditionally strong American team didn't finish the race.

Jamaicans now hold the titles of “World’s Fastest Man” and “World’s Fastest Woman”. In what was the domain of the United States, Jamaica is now the power house in the sprints and as such the world’s sprint factory.

Lightning Bolt Breaks 100-meter record, Wins Olympic Gold

It was an incredible display of pure speed. It originated from those long, waist-high strides of 6-foot-5 Usain “Lightning Bolt” with his golden spikes, to win the 100-meter Olympic gold medal and break his own world record Saturday night.

In a race usually determined with a look at the replay, it was there for all to see, this one was an amazing gap of several feet between the Jamaican and the rest of the field at the finish. And the bright, yellow numbers on the red-and-black trackside clock blaring the official time: 9.69 seconds. “Is that really possible?!” Was it possible for one man to end up that far ahead of seven other men, seven other elite sprinters, the best the world has to offer? It was, after all, the first Olympic 100 in which six men finished in under 10 seconds.

Imagine what the time might have been if with 20 meters to go and already certain victory steps away Usain Bolt had not slowed to mug for the cameras. Outstretched arms with palms up, he slapped his chest while taking the last steps, leaning back to enjoy the moment instead of leaning forward at the finish line.

Usain Bolt’s eyes were wide as he playfully nudged an opponent during the prerace stroll through the stadium hallways, and, moments later, when he clowned with one of the volunteers at the start line before handing her his backpack. “I was having fun,” Bolt said. “That’s just me—I like to have fun.”

Those lanky legs allow Bolt to cover more ground, but his turnover for each stride also takes longer. He might just be turning the dash into a big man’s event. In 2004 Bolt ran the 200 m in 19.93 seconds, becoming the first junior to break the 20-second mark; breaking Lorenzo Daniel's world junior record. At the 2007 Jamaican Championships, Bolt ran 19.75, breaking the 36-year-old national record held by Don Quarrie by 0.11 seconds. At the World Championships in Osaka, Japan Bolt won a silver medal in the 200 m behind Tyson Gay. This was only his 5th senior run over the distance. On the 13 July 2008 in Athens, Greece Usain once again broke the 200 m national record by running 19.67. Bolt arrived at the Beijing Summer Olympics as the favorite in both the 100 m and 200 meters. He is coached by Glen Mills and currently attends the University of Technology, Jamaica. Bolt has 6 sub-10 seconds in 100 m and 12 sub-20 seconds in the 200 m.

Bolt’s sudden emergence truly began May 5 in Jamaica, when he ran 9.76 seconds, just shy of countryman Asafa Powell’s then-record 9.74. Then, on May 31 in New York City, Bolt broke Powell’s mark by finishing in 9.72. Now that is gone, too, and Bolt’s 0.20-second margin of victory matched the largest in an Olympic 100 final over the last 40 years. Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago, and the NCAA champion from LSU won the silver by finishing in 9.89 and Walter Dix of the United States, was the bronze medalist in 9.91.

Bolt turned in as awe-inspiring a show as Olympic track and field has seen in years, maybe dating to Michael Johnson’s world-record 19.32 seconds in the 200 meters at the 1996 Atlanta Games. That mark could be next for Bolt, who considers the 200 his specialty. The heats for that event begin Monday, and the final is Wednesday, a day before his 22nd birthday. It’s all particularly remarkable when you consider that Bolt, from the same farming Trelawny parish in his Caribbean nation that was home to Ben Johnson, only began competing in the dash 13 months ago.

Even though his left shoelace was dangling, the knot undone. Even though he skidded out of the starting blocks with the seventh-slowest reaction time in the eight-man final. Even though as recently as this month, Bolt left some doubt as to whether he would even contest the 100 in Beijing, because he didn’t want to disrupt his preparation for the 200. The talk for weeks has been about how Bolt might hold up in the four-round format at the Olympics, and how he’d do squaring off against Powell and reigning world champion Tyson Gay. That didn’t work out. Gay, who paid for being sidelined the past 1 1/2 months after injuring his left hamstring at the U.S. Olympic trials, didn’t even make the final, finishing fifth in his semi. Powell, meanwhile, was fifth in the final for a second consecutive Olympics, adding to his reputation for flopping on the big stage.

Usain Bolt was born 21 August 1986 in Trelawny, Jamaica, the youngest of six sons of parents Cislins and William Powell. While attending William Knibb Memorial High School, he won the Jamaican high school titles in the 200 and 400 meters. At the age of 15 he won a gold and two silver medals at the 2002 World Junior Championships in front of a home crowd in Kingston, becoming the youngest world junior gold medalist ever. He won another gold medal at the 2003 World Youth Championships, running the 200 m in 20.40 seconds. Usain Bolt and retired Jamaican sprinter Michael Green are past students of William Knibb.

Allyson Felix: From Chicken Legs to World Champion

Allyson Felix, the current World Championships in Athletics 200 meter champion, was born November 18, 1985 in Los Angeles, California. She is the daughter of an ordained minister and professor of New Testament at The Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, California. Allyson herself is a devout Christian and sees her running ability as a gift from God, "My faith is the reason I run - it calms my heart and makes everything feel like a lift. My speed is definitely a gift from Him, and I run for His glory. Whatever I do, He allows me to do it."

Felix attended Los Angeles Baptist High School in the San Fernando Valley where she was nicknamed "Chicken Legs" by her teammates; the majority of the five-foot-six, 125-pound sprinter's body is a skinny bottom half. But her slightness belies her strength and speed - she can dead-lift 360 pounds and power-clean 150 pounds. Allyson didn't discover her gift until she tried out for track in the ninth grade. Just 10 weeks after that first tryout, she finished seventh in the 200 at the state championships; in the coming seasons, she became a five-time California high school state champ. As a senior, Felix finished second in the 200 at the USA Indoor Track & Field Championships. A few months later, in front of 50,000 fans in Mexico City, she ran 22.11 seconds, the fastest in history for a high school girl. In 2003, at age 17, she ran the 200-meter in 22.51 seconds to break Marion Jones’ 11-year-old record.

Felix graduated from high school in 2003, making headlines by foregoing college eligibility to sign a professional contract with Adidas. Adidas paid her an undisclosed sum and picked up her college tuition at USC, where she majored in elementary education.

Felix has also shown that she can overcome adversity. During her junior year of high school, she pulled a hamstring at the state championships and re-injured it a few weeks later at the U.S. Junior National Championships. By the time she made it to the World Juniors in Jamaica, she had lost her edge and ended up in fifth place. News articles said Felix had choked, but she kept her head up. "That was an extremely hard time," she said. "I had to depend on God."

At just 18 Felix finished as silver medalist in the 200 meters at the 2004 Summer Olympics, behind Veronica Campbell of Jamaica; in doing so set a World Junior record with her time of 22.18. She became the youngest ever gold medalist sprinter in the 200 meters at the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland in 2005 and then defended her title at Osaka, Japan two years later. At Osaka Felix caught Jamaican Veronica Campbell on the bend and surged down the straight to finish in 21.81 seconds, lowering her own season-leading time by a massive 0.37 seconds. Does that sound like a choke? After the final she stated that "I feel so good, I am so excited. I have been waiting for so long to run such a time, to run under 22 seconds. And as for the future "My next goal is not the world record, but gold in Beijing. I might consider doing both -- the 200 and the 400 meters -- there." She also has plans for the 100m. "I like the 100m but it didn't quite come together this year. I haven't reached my potential because I have problems with my start. But I haven't given up on it. I'm still excited to work on it." In 2007 she became only the second female athlete to win three gold medals at a single World Championships in Athletics. What’s next: Perhaps a gold medal (or two) at this year’s Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

Felix is coached by the legendary Bobby Kersee - husband & coach of Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee.