At that time, he was the second ranked skier in his class in Australia, and ranked in the top 60 in the world.
Thailand has no skiers ranked in the world's top 500 for any Alpine discipline.
He started with the No. 39 bib, with the first 30 start positions reserved for the top-ranked skiers.
Only a surprising run by one of the remaining 79 lower-ranked skiers will deprive him of his lead.
At first he did not intend to sell the invention at all, said Terri Pauls, who was a nationally ranked cross-country skier.
Turning to face my gondola passengers, I saw that Ivica Kostelic, an internationally ranked World Cup skier from Croatia known as Ivo, was seated directly across from me.
Under current Olympic qualification rules, countries with no skier ranked in the world's top 500 may send one man and one woman to the Games - to compete in slalom and giant slalom - if those athletes meet a second set of criteria.
After the association eliminated $12,000 in prize money, the cross-country skier Colin Rodgers, ranked as high as eighth nationally last year, lost out on $3,000 for winning the sprint category on the SuperTour racing series last year.
In 2007, he was ranked as Australia's second best sit-skier, and was in the top 50 skiers in the world.
