EXCLUSIVE: Sales of a bizarre but popular item propelling Aussie to an unlikely Olympic dream

A dream of being an Olympian was never really front of mind for Nick Timmings as a child. Instead, his sights were locked on playing for the Socceroos at a FIFA World Cup.

Great athletes are forced to pivot all the time, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many who took a more unconventional turn than Timmings.

More staggering is that Timmings would earn the honour of representing the green and gold in a sport that does not exist in Australia.

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Timmings is one of 10 Australians who have competed in skeleton at the Olympic Games - a sport where athletes reach speeds of up to 140km/h while sliding head-first around an ice track that is also used for luging and bobsled.

"It's funny, I was probably more into soccer [growing up]," Timmings told Wide World of Sports.

"I was actually only doing athletics to get faster for soccer. In soccer, the pinnacle event is the World Cup, so I was never aiming for the Olympics.

"I came from a very sporty family, very competitive. Whatever sport I was doing, I just wanted to see how far I could go and just do the absolute best I could. That was always the goal for me, no matter what sport.

"If I were at soccer, I wanted to go to the World Cup. If I were doing athletics, I wanted to go to the Olympics. I didn't really have my sights set on one particular thing."

So, how does one get into a sport that was not part of childhood? Or in this case, a sport where training is impossible without a valid passport.

The answer is simple: a conversation with his high school PE teacher, Duncan Pugh, who attended the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

A recruitment drive by the Olympic committee only enhanced Timmings' drive to give a sledding sport a go, and it soon became clear that skeleton was the event for him.

He got his first taste of the sport in Lake Placid alongside his twin brother Dean, who has since retired from the sport.

As smooth as that transition was, what followed was a series of funding questions.

As it is for most athletes representing Australia in Winter Olympic sports, the facilities available across the nation for them to train tend to be limited.

For the 34-year-old Australian, there is, in fact, no place for him to master his art in the Southern Hemisphere. The closest venue for him to do so is in South Korea in Pyeongchang, which is over 8270km away.

There is only so much he can do on land in Australia before hitting the ice in the northern hemisphere, where expenses relating to travel, transport, accommodation, entry fees and equipment begin to rise.

It is due to those expenses that Timmings was unable to take to the track for pre-tournament testing when he was preparing to make his Olympic debut in 2022.

"A lot of people don't know, but we get a test event before the Olympics so that we can train on the new tracks. Because of COVID and the lack of funding, I couldn't actually go to that test event," he revealed.

"I showed up to the Olympics having never slid on that track before, whereas the Chinese athletes had about 50 to 100 runs. Everyone else had about 50 runs also.

"I was going in with a massive disadvantage anyway, so I kind of just had the mindset to do the best I could, take it all in, learn from it and improve."

Timmings insists he has taken "a lot away from" that experience to help him in his journey to Milan, while also prompting him to look for a new method to fund his career.

A large portion of Olympic athletes, including Timmings, have fundraising pages to assist in covering the costs of accommodation, equipment, tournament fees and flights.

Timmings has at times had to "cut corners" with the costs associated with his sport by sharing rooms or, at times, sharing a bed with his brother, who is also his coach.

With at least $45,000 in costs required to get him through the qualification period alone, a craze that took over the Olympics in Paris came to mind to help fund his journey.

"I was just brainstorming fundraising ideas and how to raise a bit more money ... because I feel like sometimes it is hard to ask for money," said Timmings.

"People don't want to (necessarily donate money) unless they get something in return. People want to support you; they just want that avenue to do so.

"I landed on pins because of the whole pin craze surrounding the Olympics. People like pins because they are small, easy to collect."

All proceeds from the pins, which resemble the helmet design that he wore in Beijing for the Olympics, go towards his journey to Milan.

"The support I have gotten has been amazing," he continued.

"I have people buying multiple pins, even though they only need one."

Unlike his time in Beijing four years ago, Timmings hopes he will be able to complete the pre-Games testing due to his fundraising efforts.

But should he not be able to attend those testing sessions, he already has the advantage of knowing that he is familiar with the Olympic track.

The Australian posted a video on social media of his walk around the Olympic track in early November before taking to the ice on November 21 for the World Cup.

Timmings admitted that the track was "easy to get to the bottom" of, but challenging in terms of finding pace and navigating the curves.

Taking to the ice for a World Cup event on that track, Timmings finished 28th out of 35.

"Every time you get there, you're like, 'Do I remember how to do this track?' You get that anxious and nervous feeling," Timmings added, when asked if he still gets nervous when taking to a new track like the one in Milan.

"Ice conditions change all the time, and we're going to different tracks all the time.

"But there is no bravery without fear ... getting over that fear is what really matters.

"You don't need everyone to believe in you to be able to succeed. A lot of the time, the high-performance Australian sporting system did not believe I could do it - they've never said it, but I don't think they thought I could qualify for Beijing.

"I'm living proof that you don't need them to believe in you; all you need is to do the hard work, believe in yourself, and success will happen."

Timmings will compete in nine more World Cup events over the next two months in hopes of securing his spot on the Australian team for the Olympic Games.