The Snow Leopard is now wearing yak hair

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, better known as the "Snow Leopard", had his big Winter Olympics moment last Saturday. And even though he comes from a country without snow, he wasn't last in the men's slalom. That honour went to Albania's Erjon Tola, who finished in 48th place. The Snow Leopard was 47th.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is the first skier from Ghana, and what made his journey to Vancouver even more remarkable is that he started skiing only six years ago — in England, at the SNO!zone in Milton Keynes.

The Winter Olympics were good for Nkrumah-Acheampong in another way, too. In Vancouver, he was the face of Khunu, a yak-hair clothing company that is hoping to profit from the demand for natural products.

The Khunu story is almost as exotic as that of Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong. The China-based company, which makes luxury sports clothing from yak hair, was set up by Aaron Patillo, an American who worked at the Clinton Foundation, and Julian Wilson, a former captain in the British Army's Royal Green Jackets regiment.