Published
Mon, Jan 17, 2022, 13:30
- He will be the first person to represent Jamaica in alpine skiing.
Former DJ Benjamin Alexander will represent Jamaica at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Before Alexander left DJing in 2018 to fully focus on skiing, he toured the world and was a resident at the popular Robot Heart soundsystem at Burning Man. Next month, he will become the first man to represent Jamaica, the country of his father's birth, in alpine skiing at the Winter Olympics.
"Skiing is predominantly white and I'm always the Black representative for any skiing group," Alexander told Resident Advisor. "And because people know of my Jamaican heritage, there are always these discussions about Cool Runnings and the 1988 bobsled team [...] And that's really how this thing started: as a series of jokes at a ski trip that I went on in January and February of 2018."
He added: "Right after that, I ended up going to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang as a spectator and noticed that there were only three Jamaican athletes, which I was shocked by. The kernel of this idea was formed. Maybe I could fill a spot there."
Though Alexander has never had a full-time coach, he qualified for Beijing earlier this month after coming seventh at the Cape Verde National Ski Championships. On February 13th, he will compete in the men's giant slalom alongside some of the best skiers in the world.
"I've already got my gold medal, my gold medal was qualification," he said. "And my medal ceremony will be the opening ceremony when I hopefully hold the flag [...] I'm going up against people who have been skiing for 30 years and have had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into their training per year. These people will show up with 20 different types of skis to choose the perfect one for the temperature and the conditions on that day. Those guys are Formula One and I'm like running around chasing behind them in a go-kart."
When Alexander hits the slopes next month, he will become only the 15th person to represent Jamaica at the Winter Olympics. The first were Dudley Stokes, Devon Harris, Michael White and Chris Stokes, AKA the legendary bobsled team of 1988 whose story inspired Cool Runnings. In 2010, Erol Kerr became the first skier to compete for Jamaica, coming tenth in freestyle.
"For me, it's about participation and hopefully blazing a path," Alexander said. "So the next generation of Jamaicans—who I've already identified and am already speaking to their parents—can do much better than I can and hopefully start at a younger age than 32."
He added: "I'll ski for the rest of my life. But I'm done with ski racing after the Olympics. I may go to the World Championships next year. But realistically, I'd like to become the president of the Jamaican Ski Federation."
Born in Northampton, England, Alexander cut his teeth as a DJ playing UK garage in London clubs and on radio. He later moved to Hong Kong, where he first connected with the Robot Heart crew. This led to a full-time DJ career, which lasted almost ten years and took him all over the world. His last gig was at Kyiv club Carbon in November 2018.
Revisit Alexander's Robot Heart mix at Burning Man 2014, and check out some photos of him on the slopes.
Photo: Noah Wallace (Lead, 3), Stephen Shelesky (1, 2)
Photo: Noah Wallace (Lead, 3), Stephen Shelesky (1, 2)