Eddie 'The Eagle' Edwards (Great Britain)
At the Calgary Games in 1988, Cheltenham-born Michael 'Eddie the Eagle' Edwards became the first British athlete to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping.
He finishing last in the 70m and 90m events but won worldwide fame for his heroic failure (much to the annoyance of the ski-jumping community.)
As a result the International Olympic Committee created what became known as the “Eddie the Eagle Rule” establishing stricter minimum performance requirements for Olympic hopefuls.
Philip Boit (Kenya)
Philip Boit had never tried cross-country skiing (and had never even seen snow) until two years before he competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics.
He made switched from middle distance running to cross-country skiing and qualified for the Nagano Games to become Kenya’s first ever Winter Olympian.
He finished 92nd and in last place in the 10-kilometre classic race – 20 minutes behind the gold medal winner – and in 2002 in Salt Lake City he finished 64th, beating three competitors. In 2006 at the Turin Games he finished 92nd, beating five people.
Robel Teklemariam (Ethiopia)
Robel Teklemariam became Ethiopia’s first ever Winter Olympian after taking up skiing soon after arriving in the United States at the age of nine.
He was so determined to compete for his country he decided to set The Ethiopian Ski Federation himself to get the sport recognised.
In 2006 he competed in the 15km cross-country event where he finished 104th.
Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong (Ghana)
'The Snow Leopard' started skiing in 2004 while working as a receptionist at the indoor ski slope in Milton Keynes and became Ghana’s first ever Winter Olympian, taking part in the Vancouver Games of 2010.
He eventually finish 53rd out of the 54 skiers who finished the race.
The Jamaican bobsleigh team
The team, who were the inspiration for the 1993 film Cool Runnings first gained fame during their debut in the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta.
They had had little practice on a bobsleigh track before, and had to borrow spare equipment from other countries to compete.
They did not officially finish after losing control and crashing during one of their four runs but they went on to field bobsleigh teams in 1992, 1994, 1998, and 2002 with mixed success. In 1994 they finished 14th, ahead of the USA, Russia, and France, and in 2002 their two-man team set an Olympic record for their push-start.
One of these two - Lascellas Brown - later emigrated and won a silver and a bronze for Canada in 2006 and 2010.
Team Italy in 1948
At the 1948 Winter Olympics in St Moritz Switzerland, the Italian ice hockey team etched its name in legend, losing 22-3 to Czechoslovakia, 16-0 to Switzerland, 31-1 to the USA, 21-1 to eventual gold medallists Canada, 13-7 to Poland, 16-5 to Austria, 23-0 to Sweden, and 14-7 to Great Britain.
Goals for 24. Goals against 156.
Eric 'The Eel' Moussambani (Equatorial Guinea)
Moussambani, the swimmer from Equatorial Guinea nicknamed 'Eric the Eel' by the media, won fame at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney when he swam his 100m freestyle heat in a very languid 1:52.72 - winning the race thanks to the disqualification of two false-starting fellow competitors.
His time was more than twice that of his nearest adversary, and outside even the 200m world record. However, he set a new personal best and Equatoguinean national record.
The only other Equatoguinean to compete there fared no better. Paula 'The Crawler' Barila Bolopa's last placed time of 01:03.97 in the 50m freestyle was double that of the next worst competitor.
George Stuart Robertson (Great Britain)
in 1896 plucky Oxford graduate Robertson paid £11 to travel to Athens for the inaugural modern games after seeing an advertisement in the window of a London travel agent.
On arrival he learned that his preferred discipline – the hammer throw – was not an official sport there so he entered for the discus – where he registered the worst Olympic result ever in the event with a distance of 25.20 metres.
He later said: "Greek classics were my proper academic field, so I could hardly resist a go at the Olympics, could I?"
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