Thai muso to compete at Games
BANGKOK – Violin star Vanessa-Mae will put on her slalom skis next month to become only the third person to represent tropical Thailand at the Winter Olympics.
A British citizen, the 35-year-old Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson qualifies to compete for Thailand at the Sochi Games in Russia through her natural father. She was brought up in England when her mother remarried a Briton.
“National Olympic Committee of Thailand has already made a decision to send Kanet Sucharitakul as the male athlete and Vanessa-Mae as the female athlete,” Varin Tansuphasiri, deputy secretary-general of Olympic Committee of Thailand, said.
“( We are) currently coordinating with the International Ski (Federation) to announce the name of the contestants on their official website.”
The first Thai to compete in any Winter Olympics was academic Prawat Nagvajara, a cross-country skier, at Salt Lake City in 2002 and Turin in 2006.
Vanessa-Mae made her mark on the world stage when she broke from tradition and became known for her sexy, glamorous violin style and for mixing classical music with pop.
Her first techno pop-style album, The Violin Player, was released in 1995 and reached No 11 in the UK albums chart, selling over 10 million albums.
She qualified after competing in four giant slalom races last weekend in Slovenia.
She said last year that she started skiing when she was four, and that her ambition in her early teens was to be a ski bum.
The Sochi Games run from February 7 to 23.