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For Malta’s only athlete at the Games, it was a long road to snowboarding in Beijing.
Author Name, ProPublica
2022-02-08 00:00:00
The idea was also a way of paying homage to her grandfather, who died in 2010 and who had his own connection to the Games. He started a company, SP-Teri, that made figure skating boots for Olympic stars like Michelle Kwan.
“To be able to bring the Olympics back to his home and represent his home I thought would be a really cool and special thing,” she said.
Six months before the 2018 Olympics, Spiteri tore her Achilles’ tendon and meniscus at a World Cup event in New Zealand. She pushed through the injuries to compete in several Olympic qualifiers, but she did not land a spot in Pyeongchang.
Yet Spiteri, whose hair is bright pink and blue, was able to find her way back. Her journey is largely self funded, though she also receives financial support from the Olympic Solidarity training program, which helps countries build their national sports programs. But snowboarding is expensive, so Spiteri lives off a modest budget, reusing her gear from season to season, and has picked up odd jobs (including as an extra on shows like “Euphoria”).
To offset her rent, Spiteri lived out of her vehicle while training in Colorado and Washington during her early years. She quickly learned which foods she liked that don’t require refrigeration (canned tuna and cheese seasoning), what personal items were likely to freeze (toothpaste, contacts) and how to use a credit card to scrape away frost from the inside of her windshield.
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[1] URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/sports/olympics/jenise-spiteri-snowboarding-malta.html
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