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The Greek television reporter falls off the treadmill due to her excitement during her morning workout. Why? During her interval session, the TV woman realizes that the Greek sports sensation of the year is stealing his muscles in the outdoor area of the fitness center – Alexandros Joannis Ginnis is the name of the exceptional athlete who was the very first in the Alpine World Championships in Courchevel won the Winter Sports Medal for the land of gods and myths last winter with slalom silver.
The journalist cannot believe that this ski hero is a real Greek. Especially since he shortens his American-style first name to AJ. That’s why she confronts Ginnis in English after the sweaty workout. But the 28-year-old responds in accent-free Greek: “I know many people consider me a naturalized American. I really grew up here in Greece.”
The real ski fairytale begins on Mount Parnassos
His parents’ house is located in the beautiful suburb of Vouliagmeni in Athens. In recent years he has spent most of his summer time in the picturesque coastal town of Alepochori, an hour and a half from the capital. Standing on the beach, Ginnis stretches his fingers toward the highest mountain in the region. «This mountain is called Parnassos; I learned to ski here as a little boy. My father had a ski school there on the weekends.” Ginnis Senior, at the time the general importer of Fischer skis in Greece, quickly realized that his child was much more skilled in the snow than the average Greek.
At the age of twelve, the boy from the southernmost tip of Europe has to learn that he looks pretty bad compared to the age group from the Alps. «After my father took over a ski shop in Kaprun, I spent the winter with him in Austria. Since I had only free skied in Greece until then, I didn’t have the right timing on my first slalom runs. That is why I came in last place without exception in my first racing season in Salzburg.”
Time of suffering in Austria
Ginnis orders an espresso at the beach cafe. After a sip he starts to tell the reporter from Switzerland his life story. “The early days in Austria were very difficult for me because I didn’t speak a word of German.” That is one of the reasons why his father signed him up for the basketball club in Zell am See. “I made friends with some of my teammates there and learned the language better and better.” And the little beach boy also learns quite quickly how to survive on the ski slope against the initially overwhelming Ösis: “In my third season I achieved my first victories in the Salzburg State Cup.”
But once the exotic slalom talent has settled in Austria, he will have to deal with the next change of scenery.
World Cup debut for the US
After his parents divorced, Ginnis moved to the US with his mother, who was from North America. The mother teaches as a professor of dentistry at the University of North Carolina, AJ attends the Green Mountain Valley School in Vermont, which specializes in ski racing. He was a member of the American Ski Association junior team. At the age of 16 he celebrated his first victory in an FIS race. In the winter of 2014/15 he made his World Cup debut in Madonna di Campiglo (It) and won bronze at the Junior World Championships in Hafjell.
However, this success is overshadowed by the unexpected death of his father. And because Ginnis suffers a setback due to two cruciate ligament tears, he no longer sees any prospects for the American team in the spring of 2020. In this situation, the dual citizen sees only one option to save his sports career: returning to Greece.
No credit from the Greek Ski Association
However, his first conversation with the president of the Greek association does not go as planned. “The chairman made it clear to me that the association would not spend money on a slalom rider like me until further notice.” AJ doesn’t give up and finds some strong investors on his own. This means he can afford two supervisors: Gaby Coulet (assistant) and Sandy Vietze (head coach and ski mechanic). “Like me, Sandy was a racer in the Nor-Am series. When I hired him as a coach and service guy after a few beers in a bar, he had no experience with mechanical ski prep. And until then he had never mapped out a slalom course. But I knew he learned quickly and was a very hard worker.”
The following example shows how hard the Ginnis team works: “To save on hotel and flight costs, my trainers have already covered the 2,700 kilometers from Austria to the training course in Kabdalis, Sweden by car without a long stopover. It took them 40 hours to do it.” The Greek skiers received their first success bonus for such extraordinary efforts in January 2021, when AJ finished eleventh in the slalom in Flachau (Austria) and was in the top 15 of a World Cup race for the first time. After this remarkable success, Greece’s stingy ski boss increased the slalom budget from 0 to 40,000 euros.
Olympic use on one ski
However, just a few months later, Ginnis is once again on the brink of a sporting abyss due to his third cruciate ligament tear. “Shortly after this painful diagnosis, I was offered a great internship at a financial company in New York. Then I said to myself, “AJ, stop racing, after all, you are already 27.” But then Ginnis received an offer from the American TV channel NBC, which would lead to another change of heart. «NBC asked me if I wanted to work as an alpine expert at the Olympic Games in Beijing. I agreed because I was sure that as an athlete I would never qualify for the Olympics again. That’s why I wanted to experience this spectacle at least in the role of commentator.”
Ginnis provided breathtaking moments on his Olympic debut: “Because I could not put any weight on my right knee due to the torn cruciate ligament, I visited the steep, rather icy Olympic slope on skis. The trainers said I was completely crazy. But in those moments I clearly felt that my heart still beats for ski racing.”
The big turning point
The first thing the fighter did when he returned from Beijing was talk to his mother. “I explained to her that I wanted to try being a ski racer again. Fortunately, she assured me, like the two coaches, of her full support.”
This decision turned out to be a direct hit for the first time on February 4, 2023 – Ginnis finished second behind Ramon Zenhäuser and ahead of Daniel Yule at the Slalom World Cup in Chamonix! On this day, AJ can also recruit a new member for his team in an unconventional way. «As I celebrated my first podium finish with my trainers that evening in a bar in Chamonix, we happened to meet a Canadian tourist named Jeremy Law. He told us that he works as a physiotherapist. Because I could especially use a physio, given the height of the season in Courchevel, I asked him if he would accompany me to the World Cup if I would make the hotel room available to him. Jeremy immediately said yes!”
Two sensations in two weeks
Two weeks after the legendary night in Chamonix, the Greek ski fairytale culminates with AJ’s silver medal at the World Championships. The first person who wants to take a souvenir photo with the new national heroes after this very historic event is the man who has contributed little to this sensation so far. We are talking about George Nikitidis, president of the Greek Ski Association.
“For the photo with the president under the waitress, I agreed that he would give us a higher budget in the future,” says Ginnis. Unfortunately, the highest decision maker at GRE-Ski now seems to no longer remember this agreement. Mr Nikitidis has only slightly increased the budget for his top star to 70,000 euros with a view to the coming winter. “With this money from the association we can only cover 25 percent of the costs. After my successes, the chairman and the association did not take the right measures to obtain more financial resources.”
Ginnis managed to win global companies such as Coca Cola, Audi and the Greek investor Prodea as partners for himself and his team. The Greek slalom saga is likely to continue at least until the 2026 Olympics.
Source : Blick
I’m Emma Jack, a news website author at 24 News Reporters. I have been in the industry for over five years and it has been an incredible journey so far. I specialize in sports reporting and am highly knowledgeable about the latest trends and developments in this field.
