Athletes from around the world are in the Italian Alps for the opening of the 2026 Winter Olympics on Friday – including 13 sportspeople from eight African countries. Though the continent isn’t associated with winter sports, Africa has been a constant and growing presence at the Games since 1960.
While the African continent is well represented at the Summer Olympics, it is a different story at the Winter Games.
In Paris in 2024, African athletes won a total of 39 medals, including 13 gold medals. At the Winter Olympics, Africa is still waiting for its first medal.
At this year’s Milan-Cortina Games, 13 athletes from the continent will compete in alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing and skeleton.
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Benin, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Eritrea will each be represented by one athlete. Madagascar, Morocco and Kenya are fielding two athletes apiece, while South Africa has the continent’s largest delegation, with five athletes.
Benin, represented by Nathan Tchibozo (alpine skiing), and Guinea-Bissau, represented by Winston Tang (alpine skiing), are both making their Winter Olympics debut.
At the last Games in 2022 in Beijing, Africa fielded six athletes from five countries: Eritrea, Ghana, Madagascar, Morocco and Nigeria.
South Africa first
South Africa was the first nation to take part in the Winter Olympics in 1960. Due to political boycotts against apartheid, South Africans did not return until Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, with figure skater Dino Quattrocecere and speed skater Cindy Meyer.
Morocco became the second African nation to participate in the Winter Olympics in 1968 in Grenoble, France.
Senegal made its first appearance in 1984 in Sarajevo, while Ghana made its debut in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada, thanks to Scotland-born Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who competed in the men’s slalom.
Between 1960 and 2022, 15 African countries participated in the Winter Olympics: Algeria, Madagascar, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal, Kenya, Ghana, Togo, Egypt, Eswatini, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Eritrea.
Cross-country skier Philip Boit, who represented Kenya in 1998, 2002 and 2006, had a memorable encounter with Norwegian world champion Bjorn Daehlie.
On 12 February 1998, during the 10km classic cross-country skiing event at the Nagano Games, Boit finished last. But he was met at the finish line by the winner, Daehlie, who personally congratulated him – an image seen around the world.
“My coach had told me about him and I’d seen him on TV. I couldn’t believe that the best cross-country skier in the world was here to congratulate me,” Boit said in an interview with Olympics.com.
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Women making history
Madagascar has participated in three Winter Games, in 2006, 2018 and 2022. The country’s alpine skier Mialitiana Clerc was the only African woman to compete in Beijing in 2022, having already taken part in the 2018 Games in South Korea when she was just 16 years old.
Clerc discovered skiing in France’s Haute-Savoie mountains, where she grew up with her adoptive family. Born near Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, the skier was adopted as a baby but has always kept in touch with her biological family.
This year she will become the first woman from the African continent to compete in three Winter Olympics. “I feel lucky because, yeah, there are not a lot of African women in the world of skiing,” she told Olympics.com.
Fellow trailblazer Sabrina Wanjiku Simader was Kenya’s first female alpine skier to compete in the Winter Olympics in 2018. She was also due to compete in Milan-Cortina but had to pull out at the last minute, according to organisers.
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‘Love story’ with skiing
Decades earlier, Senegalese skier Lamine Gueye made his mark on history when he took part in the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Games – becoming the first skier from sub-Saharan Africa to do so.
The grandson of a prominent politician, he was sent to boarding school in Switzerland. There, he discovered skiing on weekends.
“I had no idea what that feeling of gliding was like. Skiing and I have a love story that began at that time,” he told newspaper Ouest-France.
Founder of the Senegalese Ski Federation in 1979, he took part in three Winter Olympics, five World Championships and 25 World Cups.
Today, he is fighting to ensure that as many African participants as possible attend the Winter Olympics.
This article was based on the original in French by RFI’s Farid Achache.