VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — When Robel Teklemariam is asked if he has a nickname back home in Ethiopia, the Olympic men’s cross-country skier — yes, you read that right — notes that there’s no word for “snow” in his native language.
So Teklemariam goes by “Beredoe Shartate,” which is loosely translated to mean “Ice Slider,” a name that might be as curious as the athlete’s presence at the Vancouver Games.
As Ethiopia’s one and only Winter Olympic team member, Teklemariam stood out in his bright green, yellow and red jacket while attending a welcoming ceremony at the athletes’ village on Thursday, a day before the games open.
“For me, I’m a team of one, but I’m representing 80 million people,” he said. “It gives me a lot of pride and honor. It’s the country that I love.”
This is the second consecutive Winter Games for Teklemariam, 35. He became his country’s first Winter Olympic athlete at Turin in 2006, when he finished 83rd in the 15km cross-country classical ski run.
Born in Ethiopia, a nation far better known for its endurance runners than skiers, Teklemariam learned about slopes in the early 1980s, when his family moved to New York after his mother got a job at the United Nations. Teklemariam was then placed in a boarding school in Lake Placid, N.Y., where he first encountered snow.
It was love at first flake.
“The kids built a jump outside on our hill after the first snowfall,” he recalled. “So before I even learned how to make a turn, I was going off straight, jumping, crashing. There was nothing like it. I fell in love with the sport right away.”
Teklemariam eventually tried several winter sports, including snowboarding, before concentrating on cross-country once he attended high school in Colorado. He proved good enough to earn a scholarship at the University of New Hampshire.
Though he trains in both Japan and Europe, Teklemariam now makes his permanent home in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
Before traveling to Vancouver, Teklemariam said he attracted some interest in Ethiopia, where he was featured in several magazines and newspapers.
He’s not the only athlete in Vancouver hailing from a place not normally associated with winter sports. Travers Dow is a skier from the Cayman Islands. Tucker Murphy is a cross-country skier from Bermuda, and Senegal is represented by skier Seck Leyti.
And, of course, there’s Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, a skier from Ghana, who is the West African nation’s first Winter Olympian. Nkrumah-Acheampong also goes by the nickname “The Snow Leopard,” because of his leopard-print racing suit.
Teklemariam said he’s also been nicknamed “The Snow Lion.” But he prefers “Ice Slider,” because it’s a description that best reflects what he does and who he is.
“Ethiopians try to keep things very, very simple. We don’t complicate things,” Teklemariam said. “In English, they have so many words for snow, sleet, hail, everything. In Ethiopia, there’s just one word for it, beredoe, which means anything frozen that comes down from the sky.”
On Monday in Vancouver, Robel Teklemariam will compete for Ethiopia in the 15-kilometer cross country skiing event.
This will be his second Olympics but the first with his mother in attendance. To qualify, he traveled the world on a shoestring budget, chasing down qualifying races as he lugged his skis across Europe on a train. His goal is to inspire a nation of citizens — most of whom haven’t seen snow.
“What he’s proving is that when you put your heart to it, it doesn’t matter where you were born,” Demisse said.
Tonight, he’ll carry the Ethiopian flag as part of the opening ceremonies.
“I have to,” he said. “I’m the only one.”
. . .
Yes, Teklemariam has seen the movie “Cool Runnings,” and yes, he understands the comparisons.
Like the Jamaican bobsledders, he’s from a warm-weather nation, is the first from his country to compete in the Winter Games and has long dreadlocks. He adds that what the Jamaicans did in 1988 opened the doors for other nations to compete.
But he’s also different, as he’s competing in a sport he’s always loved and has trained in for years.
He was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, but his family moved to New York when he was young because his mother took a job at the United Nations. While there, he went to a school in upstate New York where skiing was taught.
“The ski coach said that the moment they put him on skis, he just fell in love with it,” Demisse said. “At that time, I wasn’t feeling too worried, since he didn’t do it that often — or I wasn’t aware that he was.”
She said that she’s fine when her son goes cross-country skiing, like he will Monday, but the more dangerous alpine skiing still scares her.
From New York, Teklemariam moved to the Colorado Rocky Mountain School, going to the boarding school so he could improve his skiing. He became good enough that he was offered an athletic scholarship to the University of New Hampshire. After graduating, he took a job with Club Med resorts, working as a ski instructor.
He’s traveled the world for that job, working the slopes in Japan, Austria and the United States. Most clients, he said, are regulars and are used to seeing him, but occasionally he’ll shock somebody. A couple from Austria stopped at the top of the mountain and asked to take a picture with him, saying their friends would never believe an Ethiopian led them down a double black diamond ski run.
During his time as a trainer, Teklemariam began to pursue his dream of skiing in the Olympics.
. . .
The Ethiopian Ski Association headquarters is located on North Laurel Street in Richmond, sharing an address with The Nile.
That’s because Robel Teklemariam’s brothers, Benyam, Natan and Yoseph, help with administrative duties. When Robel presented his Olympic dream to Ethiopian officials, they said sure, as long as he handled all the paperwork.
Their hesitation was understandable — in Ethiopia, there’s not even a word for skiing. It’s referred to as beredo shetele, translated literally as “sliding on snow.”
In the run-up to the 2006 games in Torino, the brothers spent months collecting signatures and getting approval from the necessary authorities. Having finally wrapped up the paperwork with a few months remaining, Robel was able to qualify for the Torino Games.
His goal is to expose Ethiopia to skiing, and he’s making strides. In the past few years, he’s gone back to speak to various groups.
“It’s not completely uncommon to them, whereas in the past maybe they hadn’t seen it at all,” he said. “It’s a huge first step.”
At the Vancouver Games, he plans on conducting a ski seminar for native Ethiopians in the area.
The fundraising for the group comes from the brothers, who help him with traveling expenses. He’s also been assisted by Crossridge Dentistry in Glen Allen.
. . .
Robel Teklemariam admits that he’s not skiing for the gold. In Torino, he finished 83rd out of 99 competitors. He skied the course in 47:53, about 9 minutes off the winning pace.
This time, training was harder as he bounced around Europe on different trains and buses just to find mountains to train on and sanctioned races in which to qualify. Qualification is based on a rating from the International Ski Federation, which can only be given at certain races.
“Honestly, it’s been a little more difficult this time, since he’s been working in different parts of the world,” Benyam said.
On Jan. 14 he finished in 53:08 in Switzerland to secure his qualifying, a standard that was toughened this year. Kenyan skier Philip Boit was told just yesterday that he hadn’t received an exemption after failing to meet the standard. The trailblazer, who inspired Teklemariam, was looking to race in his third Olympics.
Having cleared the hurdles, Teklemariam will have his family on hand to watch Monday as he competes as his nation’s sole representative in the Winter Olympics.
But first, he’ll wave the Ethiopian flag during the parade of nations tonight.
“It’s tough to explain; it’s very surreal,” he said of the experience. “Especially in Torino, it was something I had always dreamed about — not even carrying the flag, but just participating in the games.”
