Sabrina Simader has been on many Kenyans’ lips in the last couple of weeks.
She is the first alpine skier to compete at a Winter Olympics for Kenya.
The 19-year-old is the first alpine skier to compete at a Winter Olympics for Kenya and is also the only delegate from the country at the Olympics this year.
The young girl is determined to make an impact at the games and has set her eyes on making the country proud.
“Because I’m a Kenyan, that makes me exotic and some people think I can’t ski well,” she told Reuters in January.
“At the beginning, people looked at me — OK, a black skier always gets looked at — but when your performances get better and you improve, you win them over,” she added.
Simader was born in Kenya and raised in Austria, and represented the country at the Winter Youth Olympics in 2016 and at the world skiing championships in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Her mother, who hails from Lari in Kiambu County, married an Austrian after giving birth to Sabrina in Kenya before her mother came for her.