Victor White: Barbados' First Winter Athlete

We wouldn’t usually put the words ‘winter’ and ‘Barbados’ in the same sentence but in this case, we are making the exception. Why? For the first time in history, there’s a Barbadian winter athlete. One whose ultimate goal is to represent the island at the Winter Olympic Games.

This remarkable individual is 21-year-old Victor White, the first professional freeskier hailing from Barbados.

Victor’s background

Victor was born in Sweden to a Barbadian father and a Finnish mother. He spent his childhood traveling between Sweden and Barbados.

Victor first came into contact with skiing around the age of four during his time vacationing at his grandmother’s cabin up north in Sweden.

“I think I was roughly 12 and I just loved it, it was the best thing I knew. I just had a passion for it. Then I entered a couple of competitions that year and I managed to win all of them so I realised I was pretty good. From there on it escalated.”

What is freeskiing?

For those who are not familiar with the sport, freeskiing is a combination of the high-flying tricks of freestyle skiing with the excitement of snowboarding. It made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia.

As Victor explained, freeskiing has three disciplines: slopestyle, halfpipe, and big air. Slopestyle is when the skier navigates through a course of jump and rail features, aiming to do as many difficult runs as possible. The runs contain flips and spins within the jumps and on the rails. Two runs are then judged by a group of judges and the best one counts.

Halfpipe is a half-pipe made of snow where the skier does flips and spins and they get judged. Big air is one big jump where you get judged based on your trick. All of these must be executed with style from the skier i.e it should look effortless from the spectators’ point of view.

Victor competes in slopestyle and big air, first competing in small competitions around Sweden like the Big Jump Cup series.

“I later won the juniors in the Swedish Championship. I won two golds and a silver there. Then Barbados approached me like, “Do you want to compete for us and represent us?” And my dad unfortunately passed away from cancer in 2014 but he always wanted me to represent Barbados, so it’s cool to be able to do that.”

A sport like freeskiing is built for adrenaline junkies with the possibility of serious injuries constantly looming.

“That’s half the sport. For any athlete out there competing or doing whatever, getting back from injuries is what will test you. That’s the thing that will define if you gonna make it or break it. So obviously it’s tough ya know. Being injured and not being able to do what you love is not an easy thing. However you just got to fight through it. Take it every day by the day and just fight through it.”

The 2018 Winter Olympics

Victor first attempted to qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics but unfortunately he did not make it. He was coming back from an ACL injury so he missed the first half of the Olympic qualifying competitions. Instead of having 12 occasions to qualify, he only had six which made it pretty difficult to start with. However, he was determined to make it so he put his heart and soul into each shot he had. As mentioned before, he didn’t make it which hurt him quite a bit.

“Honestly, I felt like I let all the people following me down and the Caribbean region as a whole because I’m the only colored person out there competing as well as representing the Caribbean. It’s not like I’m just representing Barbados. It’s more than that. And not making it, I felt like a disappointment. I set high standards for myself.”

Road to Beijing 2022

Qualifying for the Beijing 2022 games is Victor’s next goal and this time he’s doing things differently. He’s building a team and is going to be a bit more strategic leading up to it. For 2018, he did all the logistics, travelling, sponsorship, marketing as well as the training by himself. This time around, he has a videographer with him who takes charge of his social media and he now has support from Caribbean International. This support eases some responsibilities off of him so he can focus strictly on skiing. His next big competition is the World Championships on February 2^nd 2019 in Utah, USA.

What keeps Victor motivated and wanting to achieve his Olympic goals is his natural drive and will to inspire the youths.

“My dad had a temper and my mum as well and I have both of that in me. So I think with that DNA, I just have something in me that makes me work hard and go for it. I would say legacy, I have made history in Barbados of being the first ever winter sports athlete to compete in the World Cup, the World Championship, and now it is all about making the Olympics.”

He later hopes of combining his skiing with studies as he is applying to university next summer to study business and economics.

Other passions

Skiing may be Victor’s main passion but it’s not his only one. He also loves spearfishing and is exploring modelling as he is signed to Omega Models in Barbados. He also owns a video production company in Sweden as he has a love for filming. This love for filming also led him to vlogging and he now has a YouTube called Victorwhite246. He vlogs mainly about his journey as a freeskier and what’s happening in his life.

When he isn’t vlogging, Victor hosts a podcast called ‘Breeze‘ with Barbadian entrepreneur Jonathan McCollin. A new episode drops every Friday.

Victor’s positive attitude is also what helps to fuel his drive. He believes in “grabbing life by the balls” and living every day to the fullest.

“There are a lot of opportunities that people may not be aware of and now with the internet as well you are one click away from going viral or just a DM (Direct Message) away from your favorite artist or your fave job or whatever you want to do. Everything is so accessible with the internet so just use it. I’m fighting for my dreams and going after them. I’m fortunate enough that by the age of 21 to have fulfilled my highest dream of becoming a professional freeskier. But it didn’t come for free and it didn’t come easy, like I worked so hard for it. So anything is possible. It’s a math game, the more you work for it and the more hours you put into it. The likelier it is to come through.”