Former DJ will compete in the Winter Olympics next month

After picking up the sport in 2016, former DJ Benjamin Alexander will be representing Jamaica at this year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Alexander was a resident at the Robot Heart at Burning Man, however, ended his career as a DJ in 2018 to concentrate on skiing.

Next month, Alexander will be the first person to represent Jamaica in alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics.

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The 38-year-old was born in England but has a Jamaican father which allows him to qualify for the Jamaican team.

Alexander told Sky News: “The biggest emotion I have right now is relief. I have put my entire life into this, my savings, my reputation, absolutely everything. It's taken 200% of my all to get here.”

"I took on this project as a full endeavour in March 2020," he said. "So a big part of my fight and struggle has been against the pandemic - not being able to get into the southern hemisphere to train during their winter and losing months and months of competitions due to them being cancelled."

Even though Alexander had never lived in Jamacia, he ended up spending four months there after getting stuck in the Caribbean due to the pandemic in March 2020.

Whilst there he was able to “learn more about the island” and appreciated the “cool factor" associated with it at the games.

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"The biggest cheer at the Olympics is always for the host country, but the second biggest cheer is always for Jamaica," he said.

Asked if Cool Runnings had influenced him, he replied: "Had it not been for that movie and my friends making jokes about me being like Cool Runnings I don't think this plan would have been concocted."

He added on the subject of winning gold: "I don't want to take anything away from the people who started from the age of two.

"My story is all about participation and hopefully inspiring the next generation of Jamaican children to start earlier than 32."

See how Benjamin Alexander does at the Beijing Winter Olympics which begin on 4 February.

Becky Buckle is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Twitter