Peter Hinds is racing at the Olympics for Slovakia. He grew up in the 49th state, wore bib 49 in Tuesday’s sprint race and finished 49th. (Photo courtesy Peter Hinds)

PREDAZZO, Italy — On Denali in Alaska, there’s a famed climbing route called Slovak Direct — a nod to a group of skilled alpinists from Slovakia who established it in 1984.

Now, as this year’s Winter Olympics kick off, an Alaska-raised athlete is making something of a name for himself in Slovakia, competing for the nation’s Olympic team in cross-country skiing.

Peter Hinds, a 23-year-old graduate of University of Alaska Anchorage, realized last year that he could race for the country where his mother grew up — then qualified to represent it in Italy.

Call it Slovak Indirect.

Hinds competed in his first Olympic race Sunday in Italy, finishing 60th — capping a whirlwind season that’s also included a ceremonial team-naming in Bratislava with a handshake from the Slovak president, Peter Pellegrini.

“They had the guards with the little floofy hats and the guns, standing perfectly still,” Hinds said. “It was cool — it kind of felt like royalty. And that’s the thing about something as big as the Olympics: It lives bigger in people’s minds.”

Peter Hinds shakes hands with Slovakia’s president, Peter Pellegrini, in a pre-Olympics ceremony in Bratislava. (Photo provided by the Office of the President of the Slovak Republic)

Hinds’ Olympic saga starts with the fall of the Iron Curtain, at the end of the 1980s. His mother, Elena Hinds, grew up in the Slovakia city of Bratislava when it was part of the Eastern Bloc.

“I was young, fresh out of school, just wanted to travel and see the world,” she said in an interview in Italy, after watching her son’s first Olympic race. “Landed in Los Angeles.”

There, Elena met Peter’s father, Cory, when she joined the local mountaineering club, and the couple ended up in Alaska.

Peter grew up there as an only child with, he joked, “no rights.”

“I had to do everything that the parents decided to lug me on,” he said — including being roped in with them on glaciers during alpine traverses.

Hinds eating makové slíže, a Slovak dish of potato dumplings with maple syrup and ground poppyseed. “The poppyseed is exquizite,” Hinds wrote in a text message. (Photo courtesy Peter Hinds)

Hinds also spent time absorbing Slovak language and culture growing up, including a school year in Bratislava, where he still has family. Elena cooked Slovak foods, too, like bryndzove halušky — a gnocchi-like dumpling traditionally paired with sheep cheese and bacon bits.

“It’s so good,” Hinds said. “You get the sour blanket, white canvas taste of that cheese. And then you get a really sharp, salty bacon bit in there — it’s really a good dish.”

As a kid, Hinds trained with Anchorage’s Alaska Pacific University club program, then studied engineering at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where his results included a 14th place at the collegiate national championships. He’s also placed sixth in the sprint at the U.S. national championships.

A young Peter Hinds on the Eklutna Traverse, a famed climbing route in the mountains behind Anchorage. (Photo courtesy Peter Hinds)

As school was wrapping up, he went to the career fair and interviewed with several companies with offices in Anchorage; he thought maybe he could pair an engineering job with an assistant cross-country ski coaching gig. He also contemplated graduate school.

But Hinds had Slovak citizenship through his mother, who’d been following the country’s ski team, thought her son would be competitive and encouraged him to explore whether he could join. At a ski marathon last spring, he also got a nudge from an international athlete, Australian Rosie Fordham, who attends the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“She was like, ‘Mate, you should totally just switch your (International Ski Federation) license to Slovakia. You’d probably be the best skier there,’ ” Hinds said.

He didn’t really know where to start that process, though, so he went to the internet, where he noticed that his rankings were competitive with Slovakia’s top racers. “I looked them up on Instagram, sent them a DM,” and the process unfolded from there, effectively “no questions asked,” Hinds said — though he acknowledged detecting a little skepticism, at first, from Slovak athletes at risk of being displaced by an American-raised interloper.

“I came over and I actually knew how to speak Slovak, and they were impressed,” he said.

A Slovak print newspaper featured a story about Peter Hinds. (Photo courtesy Cory Hinds)

The license change prompted an enthusiastic press release from the Slovakia ski team, which celebrated the addition of a “promising young endurance athlete.” Slovak media has also chronicled Hinds’ progress and results, with family members collecting copies of print newspapers.

After training in Alaska last summer, Hinds bought a one-way ticket to Bratislava, where he has a “home base” with family. Since then, he’s been ski racing, at training camps with the Slovakia team or staying with other friends around Europe.

At stops on the top-level World Cup circuit, he’s encountered other Alaska athletes that he’s raced and trained with, like JC Schoonmaker and Gus Schumacher — both standouts on the U.S. team.

“I’m a small fish compared to those boys on the circuit, so I’ve got to know my place,” Hinds said. “But it’s cool to see them, say hi, and see that this is really where they’re able to do things that few can, you know?”

Fordham, the Australian who Hinds credits with inspiring his European experience, described him as a “good friend on the World Cup who doesn’t take things too seriously, but is pretty serious about ski racing.”

“He’s just, like, so excited to be here,” she said. “It’s good to see someone who has such enjoyment of the sport and just wants to be out here having fun skiing fast, and with his friends.”

Peter Hinds speaks with reporters after his first race at the Olympics. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz)

At the Games, Hinds got to attend one of the opening ceremonies, then found himself surprised by the gravity of the moment when he finally got to the start of his first Olympic race.

“It’s super cool to see all these people here — I mean, it was a great atmosphere. But I was genuinely nervous,” Hinds said in an interview afterward. A crash on a busy corner early in the 20-kilometer race set him back, but he made it to the finish without getting lapped and pulled out — a fate suffered by a number of athletes from other small nations.

One of the benefits of being on a small team: Hinds will get to race more events in Italy, unlike some of the athletes from the larger U.S. team who might only get a single start at the Olympics.

Peter Hinds’ parents Elena and Cory and his girlfriend Eva Weymuller take a moment to relax after watching his first race at the Olympics. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz)

And while he doesn’t plan to spend time at bars, he does plan to spend some time enjoying and absorbing the Olympic experience — perhaps getting over the mountains to another satellite competition venue in the resort town of Cortina. He’ll also get time with his girlfriend and parents, both of whom are in Italy to watch.

“Nobody expected this. But he’s making it happen, and it’s pretty exciting,” Cory Hinds said. “Everybody’s cheering for Peter like crazy.”