During Thursday’s skeleton, NBC cameras got a good view of Ghanaian skeleton slider Akwasi Frimpong’s intricate helmet. It’s an illustration of a rabbit inside the mouth of a lion. The rabbit doesn’t seem like it’s panicking, and instead looks fairly calm.
Ghanaian olympian Akwasi Frimpong’s skeleton helmet has a rabbit escaping a lion’s mouth
He’s not the lion; he’s the rabbit.
Still, it’s a bold illustration. The imagery is powerful at face value for his competitors, but it also holds a deeper meaning, according to NBC:
“My former sprint coach Sammy Monsels talks about the analogy of a rabbit in a cage, ready to escape from a lion,” Frimpong said in an email Monday. “I am that rabbit, and I have escaped the lions [of my past]. I am no longer being eaten by all the things around my life.”
With that, the helmet works in an even more intricate way, as Frimpong and the rabbit both go sliding down to escape the lion and beat the competition. The lion, of course, will also be there but there will be no fear in the journey.
Frimpong wasn’t the only competitor to wear a cool helmet, but his told a compelling story.
