For Malta’s only athlete at the Games, it was a long, hard road to snowboarding in Beijing.

In January 2012, Jenise Spiteri, then a college student, posted a Facebook status that read, “Wanted: someone to teach me how to ride pipe tomorrow. anyone available??” The post garnered two likes, 10 comments and one share.

A decade later, Spiteri, 29, is competing in the women’s snowboarding halfpipe competition at her first Olympic Games. She is the first snowboarder to compete for Malta in a Winter Games and the only athlete representing the country this year in Beijing.

As a child in California, Spiteri wanted to become an actor. But as a high school senior she decided to pursue professional snowboarding. She went on to ride in college, and one of her teammates suggested she try to qualify for the Olympics for Malta, where her paternal grandfather emigrated from after World War II. Spiteri hadn’t considered competing in the Olympics, she said, but the idea made strategic and sentimental sense: Because she did not rise through the regular developmental pipeline in the United States, her chances of representing her country on the Olympic stage were slim at best.

But the idea was also a way of paying homage to her grandfather, who passed away in 2010 and who had his own connection to the Games. He started a company, SP-Teri, that made figure skating boots for Olympic stars like Michelle Kwan. “To be able to bring the Olympics back to his home and represent his home I thought would be a really cool and special thing,” she said.

Six months before the 2018 Olympics, Spiteri tore her Achilles’ tendon and meniscus at a World Cup event in New Zealand. She pushed through the injuries to compete in several Olympic qualifiers, but she did not land a spot in Pyeongchang.

Yet Spiteri was able to find her way back. Her journey is largely self funded, though she also receives financial support from the Olympic Solidarity training program, which helps countries build their national sports programs. But snowboarding is expensive, so Spiteri lives off a modest budget, reusing her gear from season to season, and has picked up odd jobs (including as an extra on shows like “Euphoria”).

To offset her rent, Spiteri lived out of her vehicle while training in Colorado and Washington during her early years. She quickly learned which foods she liked that don’t require refrigeration (canned tuna and cheese seasoning), what personal items were likely to freeze (toothpaste, contacts) and how to use a credit card to scrap away frost from the inside of her windshield.

In 2020, Spiteri upgraded to a van that she outfitted with a refrigerator and burner for cooking, but still lacked heat as she slept. Temperatures plummeted to 18 degrees Fahrenheit. “I couldn’t figure out a way to do heating without signaling the van was occupied,” she said. “I am a 5-foot-4 female, and I don’t want people knowing that someone is sleeping in there.”

While training last summer for three weeks, rather than buy a season pass for $900, plus the daily $125 fee to the halfpipe, Spiteri hiked more than a mile up the mountain with her gear to access the slopes. She spent the money she saved on coaching sessions a couple of times a week.

But the daily trek was daunting. “Three days into hiking I was like, Why am I doing this?” Spiteri recalled. “I am training for the Olympics, and I already hiked for an hour before I got to training.”

It’s been a long 10 years since that Facebook post, but for Spiteri, whose hair is bright pink and blue, the sacrifices have been worth it to make the Olympics.

“I know I didn’t have the same advantages or opportunities as other people, but I never wanted to quit because of those,” Spiteri said. “That was never an option. It was like I need to work harder to make up for it.”