"To compete at the highest levels of snowboarding, racers must master carving, edging and balance at speeds stretching the limits of imagination. They can fluently read the nuances of snow and fine-tune their bodies to cross the finish line faster than anyone else. The Canadian snowboarder Ryan Wedding had these skills but also the quality that catapults amateurs to an elite level: a highly competitive instinct to succeed that can at times manifest in a desire to crush fellow competitors."
"Those traits were perhaps not as useful as he would have hoped when he competed in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The course was icy, he misjudged turns and in the end, he failed to reach the podium. But the latter quality the fierce and relentless desire for success apparently served him in his rapid rise to leader of a notorious drug trafficking ring which, according to US authorities, raked in $1bn in cocaine sales each year."
Ryan Wedding developed elite snowboarding skills such as carving, edging and balance and competed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, where he failed to reach the podium after misjudging icy turns. His intense competitive instinct reportedly propelled a rapid rise to leadership of a transnational drug trafficking ring. US authorities claim the enterprise generated about $1bn a year in cocaine sales and that Wedding ordered killings of those who stood in his way. He was nicknamed El Jefe, Giant and Public Enemy and was recently taken into custody. Analysts suggest authorities may have overstated the operation’s scale amid political pressure on Mexico. Wedding’s early years in Thunder Bay contrasted with the later allegations of violent, cross-border criminality.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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