Olympic Athlete Profile (22 of 25) Robel Teklemariam/cross country skiing/Ethiopia

Robel Teklemariam, 35, seen here waving the Ethiopian flag in the stands during the Vancouver Olympics' opening ceremonies, finished 93rd out of 95 cross country skiers in the 15-km freestyle competition on Feb. 15, but his story is quite a unique one given that he represents a country in sub-Sahara Africa.

Robel (we'll use his first name to make life easier) has spent a considerable amount of time in America as he is an alumnus of The University of New Hampshire.

"The Richmond Times-Dispatch" reported that his mother Yeshaneg Demisse, who was in attendance to watch her son at the games, owns a restaurant called The Nile which serves Ethiopian food near the Virginia Commonwealth University campus in Richmond, Va.

Robel competed in his second Olympics after making his debut in Torino.

Dario Cologna of Switzerland won the gold in the 15km free-style with Italian Pietro Piller Cottrer getting silver and Czech skier Lukas Bauer taking bronze.

Robel told "The RTD" that he hoped to expose more Ethiopians to skiing, and that the diaspora community in British Columbia was very welcoming of him.

On Robel's wikipedia page, he is quoting as saying that his mission is a minimalist one:

"I'm a realist," Robel said. "My goals are for further down the road. I want this Olympics to open my eyes and hopefully the eyes of other Ethiopians."

Robel has also a kept a blog of his expeirences as part of the 5 Dreams project, which includes blogs from for other Olympic athletes. One of the other four is Turkish figure skater Tugba Karademir, whom we features in our second entry in this series. Karademir's short program was actually televised in prime time on NBC even though she was not a medal contender.

The story of how Robel flew in from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa (ninth grade geography teachers may want to make this a bonus question on their next test!) to Dubai to Toronto to Vancouver is one that any road-weary passenger can relate to.

Robel said that an expected 20-minute stopover in Dubai became a two-hour nightmare because of the extensive time it took him to go through customs. Then, he boarded what would be an exhausting 14-hour flight to Toronto. After that, he had to get on a domestic Canadian flight to Vancouver which took yet another four hours.

But, he made it in time for the opening ceremonies, which were in his own words an unbelievable experience.

Winter Athlete Profile (9 of 25) Philip Boit/Cross Country Skier/Kenya

I first heard about Philip Boit on the NPR news program "The World" a few weeks ago when he wasn't entirely sure if he would be able to compete as a cross-country skier at the olympics.

The good news is that Boit, 38, will be competing in his fourth consecutive Olympics dating back to the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan.

Along with fellow Kenya distance runner Henry Bitok, Boit was part of a Nike program to have Kenyan runners train in Finland to become cross country skiers.

Boit became the first Winter Olympic athlete to ever compete for Kenya. During his first Olympics, Boit finished 92nd but Norwegian cross country skier Bjorn Daehle who won gold in the event delayed the award ceremony so that Boit could finish his run. For that noble gesture, Boit named on his sons Daehle Boit.

The Kenyan athlete finished 64th at the '02 Salt Lake City Olympics and 92nd at the last winter games in Turin, Italy.

According to the web site goafrica.com, one of the challenges for African winter athletes is actually having the funds to travel to the Olympic host cities.