LONDON - The Winter Olympics have produced some unlikely competitors over the years. Remember hapless British ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards? The Jamaican bobsledders who inspired the movie “Cool Runnings”? The Kenyan and Cameroonian cross-country skiers?

Get ready for the possibility of another novelty act in Turin next month - a 31-year-old African skier known as the “Snow Leopard.”

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is hoping to become the first Ghanaian to compete at the Winter Olympics.

“The other racers give me a lot of support because I'm the only African dude there,” he said. “Most of them are curious about what I'm trying to do, so even if I'm the last one to finish, they always congratulate me on putting two good runs together.”

Nkrumah-Acheampong (pronounced N-kro-ma A-cham-pong) discovered snow for the first time while working as a receptionist at an indoor snow slope in England. Now he’s hoping to race in the Olympic giant slalom against the likes of Bode Miller and Hermann Maier.

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“My goal is to qualify, then ski well and to prove to people who thought it was an impossibility it is possible,” he said.

Nkrumah-Acheampong was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to Ghana as a child. He returned to Britain and took a job at the Xscape Snozone indoor ski center at Milton Keynes, 50 miles north of London, giving him free access to a 50-foot-long slope.

He took to the sport immediately, passed his indoor instructor’s course, won a few races and asked the local coaches how he should continue his development. They joked he should enter the Olympics.

Why not?

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“I haven't skied for that long,” Nkrumah-Acheampong said. “I’m still learning and I haven’t gotten into a mold with my technique yet, so it could still be better.”

Nkrumah-Acheampong has been competing in FIS races, below the elite World Cup level, in order to qualify for the Olympics. He has lowered his FIS points total from 1,000 to 215, and is close to the 115 needed to qualify for the Turin Games.