One might anticipate Sasquatch, black bear or summer marmot sightings on Mount Washington Alpine Resort, but the odds are high against a glimpse of a Snow Leopard and a confirmed sighting is likely to make headline news.

Training on Mount Washington seemed against all odds for the Snow Leopard until Tourism Mount Washington and a group of sponsors from the local community got together. Now, the odds of a sighting of the Snow Leopard in training on Mount Washington are in your favour. The Snow leopard will be on Mount Washington for his final training days in preparation for the last leg of his incredible 5 year journey from an indoor slope in Milton Keynes to the 2010 Winter Olympics. 

Kwame commented “Both me and my team are looking forward to staying on Vancouver Island which looks a simply stunning location and a place we can call home from home.  I am incredibly grateful to the local sponsors for believing in my dream. This sort of support has been my story of just getting to the Olympics where individual fans have sponsored a spot on my trademark leopard print catsuit to join my Paddy Power Kwame’s Army”

The Snow Leopard arrives in the Comox Valley on the 31st January and will be staying on Mount Washington
for approximately 10 nights.

Just what or who is the Snow Leopard? Ghanaian Olympian Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, better known as the Snow Leopard was born in Glasgow in 1974 whilst his father was studying for a masters degree at the University of Glasgow. Returning to his ancestral homeland of Ghana as a young child Kwame remained in Africa throughout his childhood and formative years. Leaving Ghana to return to Britain where he settled in Milton Keynes taking a job in the local indoor ski centre, where he ventured onto skis for the first time.

Kwame is a sporting fanatic who has achieved some success with other sports including tennis, badminton and athletics. But it is his passion and drive to master skiing that has driven him to achieve his and every sportsman’s dream to qualify and compete in the Olympics.

Having narrowly missed qualification for the Turin Winter Olympics – Kwame’s dream was realized last year when he qualified for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Kwame’s African heritage from a country without snow makes his participation and story particularly special. He is by no means the first athlete from a tropical country without snow to compete in a Winter Olympic event but he is the first and only alpine skier from Ghana and one of only a handful from the African continent. But, what makes Kwame’s dream and journey to the Olympics even more incredible - is that he only starting skiing just over 6 years ago on an artificial indoor slope in Milton Keynes, England where he was working at the time. And, when not training in Italy in Val de Fiemme, his training base in the Italian Dolomites, he has continued training indoors at the Snow Centre Hemel Hempstead, which has become his UK training base.

The "Snow Leopard’s" incredible story has and continues to attract a growing following of supporters and you can’t help asking: "Could this be history repeating itself in Canada at the 2010 Winter Games – with a possible sequel to the movie Cool Runnings?". It was after all in Calgary at the 1988 Winter Olympics, that the Jamaican Bobsled team coached by Howard Siler, first gained fame. The Jamaican's popularity, support
and achievements led to the making of the famous movie and the development of this seemingly unusual winter sport for a tropical nation as the Jamaican team went on to enjoy a 14th place finish in Lillehammer in 1994 and a gold medal in the 2000 World Push Bobsled Championships.

The interest is shaping up for Kwame to become a global media star with his amazing journey to the
Vancouver Winter Olympics - His is the ‘African Cool Runnings’ story.