The Winter Olympics don't really represent the world: Costs, climate and quotas keep the majority off the podium

By Amy Woodyatt, CNN

Updated 1132 GMT (1932 HKT) February 21, 2022

(CNN)At 38, Benjamin Alexander became Jamaica's first ever alpine skier to compete in the Winter Olympics — just six years after he first strapped on skis.

In his first few years in the sport, skiing with friends, he attracted a lot of attention. «Being the only Black representative in the group, even though I am only half-Black and being of Jamaican heritage, people kept throwing jokes, sideways jokes at me about 'Cool Runnings,' the Jamaican bobsled team and, 'You should go to the Olympics,'» Alexander told CNN Sport. Benjamin Alexander represented Jamaica in alpine skiing — a first for the island nation.Although the Summer Games are often heralded as a melting pot — 11,417 athletes from 206 countries and regions across 33 sports participated in Tokyo 2020 — the Winter Games are nowhere near as diverse, with 91 delegations taking part at Beijing 2022. That's five times more than the number of teams represented in the first Winter Games in Chamonix, France in 1924. Read MoreBut athletes from Africa, South Asia, as well as those from smaller island nations still find themselves struggling to qualify for competition in the Winter Olympics due to warmer climates, the prohibitively high cost of equipment, lack of infrastructure and limited opportunities to practice and compete. And one athlete and his coaches that CNN interviewed for this story warn that continental quota systems that allowed countries and regions with smaller Winter Olympic delegations the opportunity to establish and expand in sliding sports in PyeongChang 2018 were scrapped ahead of Beijing, with a knock-on effect on African countries. A push for diversity, with limited success More