While the world knows Olympic javelin thrower Leyrn Franco (seen above) for her runway model looks as much as her athletic ability, the world will be introduced to a new female competitor on the Olympic stage in Sochi. Julia Marino, who was born in the South American nation but was adopted by an American family, will make Paraguay's Winter Olympic debut in the women's slopestyle event of the freestyle skiing discipline.
Tonga may be well respected when it comes to the sport of rugby (the South Pacific nation of just over 100,000 beat the Americans at the 2007 Rugby World Cup), but its Olympic debut has already been criticized by the fresh-faced IOC president Thomas Bach. Why?
Because the lone Tongan qualifier, luger Bruno Banani, changed his name from Fuahea Sumi to its current calling, which is the name of a German lingerie company. Banani altered his moniker for marketing purposes, but the new German IOC leader called the name change "bad taste."
Nepal has something of a tradition in the Winter Olympic event of cross-country skiing. Well, sort of.
Jay Khadka (seen above) was the first athlete from Nepal to compete in the Winter Games in 2002. Khadka passed the torch to countryman Dachhiri Sherpa, who has competed and finished no higher than 92 in the Torino and Vancouver Games but has achieved iconic status in the sport of ultra-marathon. Sherpa still owns the course record for the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (a 103 mile race through the Alps) with a time of 20 hours and five minutes, set in 2003.
Mexico is once again solely represented in the Winter Olympics by Hubertus von Hohenlohe (seen above), who may be the most interesting athlete in Sochi. Von Hohenlohe is a descendant of German royalty and has a grandmother who is half Mexican, making the quintessential Renaissance man eligible to compete for Mexico.
What has von Hohenlohe done in his 54 years (yes he is 54!) of living? Well, he founded the Mexican Ski Foundation in 1981, competed in Sarajevo three years later, and has qualified for five Olympic Games since. The royalty is also a businessman, photographer and a pop singer who goes by the stage name "Andy Himalaya" and "Royal Disaster."
From one multifaceted cross-country/ultra-marathoner from Nepal, to the many-sided 54-year-old pop singer/alpine skier from Mexico, to the versatile alpine skier/rugby stalwart from the Cayman Islands. Enter Dow Travers, who will be making his second Winter Olympics appearance for the Caribbean British Territory.
Travers was born in Cayman Islands and went to boarding school in London before becoming a four-time All-Ivy Leauge rugby player at Brown University. For Vancouver, Travers trained for 60 days among all his other pursuits (like being a member of the Cayman Islands national rugby team) to qualify and finish 69th in the giant slalom. Travers will be back in the giant slalom and has also added the slalom to his schedule in Sochi.
