A new name may have been added to the list of plucky but noncompetitive winter sportsmen — a ledger that includes Eddie the Eagle (Michael Edwards) and the 1988 Jamaican Olympic bobsled team — after Adrian Solano wobbled his way onto and then around the course this week at the Nordic world ski championships in Lahti, Finland. Commentators who witnessed his every fall there quickly called him the “world’s worst skier ever.”
To anyone aware of his back story, however, the reason behind his shakiness was understandable: Until arriving at the competition this week, Solano, a Venezuelan, had never set foot on, nor even seen, snow.