Hong Kong alpine skier Audrey King has been in a race against herself her entire career. On Wednesday, the 19-year-old will vie with the world’s best in the women’s slalom event at the Yanqing National Alpine Ski Centre, in what will undoubtedly be the biggest run of her life. But her week leading up to the Beijing Winter Games has been unsettling, to say the least. Upon arriving at Beijing Capital International Airport from her Bosnia training camp on January 30, King tested positive for Covid-19 . She tested positive again the following morning, with “Beijing bubble” protocol forcing her into mandatory quarantine while “close contact” teammate Adrian Yung Hau-tsuen and head coach Marko Rudic were also closely monitored despite turning in negative tests. With just 10 days to her event, there were legitimate fears that King would not be able to make her dream Olympic debut. Athletes require seven consecutive negative tests to ensure participation. Miraculously, she reported consecutive negative Covid-19 test results last week , allowing her to be discharged from isolation and back on to the training slopes under strict social distancing measures. The trio, forced to sit out of the Games’ opening ceremony, will be tested regularly including six hours before their events. “Definitely not how I expected my Olympic experience to start – I’m just happy and grateful that I was able to test negative so quickly,” said King, who despite the hiccups was seen smiling on the slopes in her final training sessions. That King is making her senior Olympics debut in Beijing could not be any more poetic. She was just five years old when she visited the capital for the Summer Olympics in 2008. She has vivid memories of attending exhilarating ceremonies, feeling star-struck by gymnasts and snapping pictures outside the famous Bird’s Nest stadium. Little did she know she would return to the same city nearly 14 years later – no longer as a spectator, but as a Winter Olympian representing her beloved home of Hong Kong. “For me, it’s really a full-circle moment,” said King, whose snow sports journey started on the Japanese mountains aged four. Her father, a ski enthusiast, would take the family on ski trips every winter during school holidays. “We got a good amount of time on snow growing up,” King said, adding it did not take long to find her real passion having been enrolled in gymnastics lessons. “I still love that feeling of flipping and being in control of my body. But suddenly, I was thrown into the world of skiing. It wasn’t a very concrete decision at first, but the more time I spent skiing, gymnastics became more of a hobby to me.” It was not until King turned 13 that she came across a golden opportunity to ski competitively. “We heard that the Hong Kong ski team [was] holding their trials. Whatever that meant, I had no idea,” King said, laughing. The city’s team was only just taking shape, and after a successful try-out, the King made it onto the team, giving her access to professional training and a taste for racing. “Racing is more fun for me now because it’s a really different thing from just free skiing. You kind of have a different purpose in mind,” she said, explaining the uncompromising focus required on the course to guide her high speeds and turns. King put herself on the skiing map aged 17 as she represented Hong Kong at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games, schussing down the snowy slopes of Switzerland. But living in a subtropical city meant extra hurdles in training and logistics – not to mention she was a full-time student. King described her schedule as “pretty crazy”, perennially juggling studies while flying in-and-out of the city to train. Over the summer breaks, she would train in Austria or South America before returning to Hong Kong for school. From late-December to March, she would jet off again to continue elite-level training overseas. “My school would still send me work,” the former Chinese International School student said. “I’d still have to do it abroad and learn the material myself. But they … supported me through that.” Some of King’s most hectic days were experienced last January, when she needed to prepare for her vital university entrance exams – simultaneously training overseas. King would head to the slopes at about 7am, ski until noon, and take a short rest before studying. She remembered chugging Red Bulls to stay focused and alert while sitting her mock examinations, of which each lasted three to four hours. By the time she completed them, it would already be midnight. Her frantic schedule continued for two weeks. “Once that was over, it was like a breath of fresh air,” King said. Luckily for her, the taxing balance between snow and books paid off the same year when she received an acceptance letter to the prestigious Harvard University in the US. As exciting as it was, King ultimately chose to defer her admission by a year to focus on her sports career. “Before this point, my attention was very split between school and skiing. I couldn’t really get the most out of either one,” said the future Harvard student-to-be, adding she is leaning towards majoring in “psychology, English, maybe even education”. With the 2022 Winter Olympics right around the corner, and a successful outing at the youth iteration in Lausanne the previous year, King decided to dedicate all her energy towards her sport. But just as the season was getting under way, the athlete suffered a minor injury to her knees and another on her ankle. Upon consultation, doctors found ruptured tendons and advised her to undergo surgery. Knowing that the Olympics were closing in, the teen opted not to have the operation and, instead, relied on her body to heal itself. “Even though they were minor, it definitely took a toll, but I’m just happy I got to where I was and where I am today,” she said. Hong Kong Olympic trio assess artificial snow and colder rinks Skip to last December, and King needed just one more strong finish at a race in Monrenegro to qualify for her first senior Olympics in Beijing. After she sprinted through the finishing line, she looked at her time – she had made it. It was the best moment of her career, she said, and a culmination of all the sacrifices she had made since childhood. “At that moment, I kind of just collapsed,” King said. “Then I just felt tears in my eyes because it had been such a long season.” As part of the largest-ever delegation Hong Kong has ever sent to a Winter Games, King is amazed by how far winter sports have come in the city. “I hope it will be inspirational for the next generation of winter sports athletes in Hong Kong,” she said. Upon returning to the Chinese capital for a very different Olympic Games, King said she still remembered how stirring it felt the first time. “It was really surreal to be surrounded by that kind of atmosphere. I hope that I can revisit that feeling when I compete in the Games,” she said, adding that she has “changed a bunch” both mentally and physically having experienced elite European competitions. Though the promising skier did not set too ambitious a goal for her first Olympics, she hoped to be in her best form and not forget to savour every moment of the experience. “My entire racing career is essentially a race against myself,” she said. “If I can reach them [my standards] and ski to my full ability, I’d walk away from the Games really happy no matter the result.”