In the formative years of his sporting development, rowing was Ben Lynch's first calling.
His Dubliner dad Kevin was an accomplished oarsman, twice winning the prestigious Henley Royal Regatta, first with Lee Rowing Club and then with Dublin University Boat Club.
Ben's brother Thomas followed suit; he was part of two victorious Cambridge crews in the famous Oxford-Cambridge boat race on the River Thames.
All four of the Lynch boys would spend time in the boat with their father, but a family move from Ireland to Vancouver introduced Ben to winter sports, and he never looked back.
It was the intense adrenaline rush of freestyle and half-pipe skiing in particular that appealed to Lynch, who says he first gained his "air awareness" by doing flips and somersaults on a trampoline in the back garden.
"It's high risk," he says. "But I think skiing specifically is by far the best action sport you can do because you're on the mountains, you're away from the city life. There's this kind of calming, freeing feeling to it.
"There's a lot of, I guess you'd say, style or creativity involved as well. So it's very cool to try different grabs and do different accesses with your flips. It's a very cool sport."
"It takes a long time to really get comfortable on your skis and get to the point where it's not as scary anymore."
This month, he'll reach the highest peak of his career by appearing at the Winter Games for Ireland.
The 23-year-old has to kick his heels for a couple more weeks, competing in the half-pipe qualification heats on Thursday 19 February, but given Lynch has just recovered from a knee injury, that's probably no harm.
Half-pipe skiing is a young man's game that rewards risk. Athletes slingshot themselves off the walls of a 22-foot high U-shaped wall of snow to perform tricks and grabs; it's not for the faint-hearted.
"It takes a long time to really get comfortable on your skis and get to the point where it's not as scary anymore," adds Lynch, who's broken his collarbone twice. "Especially in the half-pipe. It can be very dangerous. You need to be very precise and accurate or else you could get really hurt. So yeah, it takes a while."
Lynch switched to Ireland last year having spent time on the Canadian development team. Reaching the standard required to qualify for this Olympics was a slog, but Lynch managed it, and now fancies his chances of making it through to the half-pipe final.
"It's hard to keep your ranking. You have to be in that top 24 for freestyle, top 24 of the clean list, which is like the Olympic allocation list. It was difficult to keep my ranking, especially with injuries.
"It's a very injury prone sport. I had a knee injury at the start of the season, but I was just constantly progressing and trying to get better while managing that risk-reward.
"Usually if you're feeling good, you're going to ski good."
"I switched to the Irish team last season and one of the main reasons was obviously the pride and honour involved through being from Ireland and being born there. It seemed like a really good opportunity to represent my home country."
Lynch loves his rock music. He plays electric guitar but didn't pack it for the trip to Italy - "it's hard to bring with you because it's big" - so he'll spend his time listening to tunes, getting into the right head space before his moment in the spotlight.
"Every single morning I do a warm-up," Lynch goes on. "It's really helpful to loosen up the muscles and joints. And you just warm up. I don't get into my biggest, gnarliest tricks straight away. You go and you ski and then I'll laugh with my buddies on the chairlift and kind of just get into the zone, make sure I'm feeling good.
"Usually if you're feeling good, you're going to ski good.
"That's when I'll start to say, 'okay, how can I do something big here?'."
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Team Ireland schedule
Friday 6 February: Opening Ceremony – Milano (Irish in the Livigno, Cortina and Predazzo clusters)
Saturday 7 February: Cormac Comerford – Downhill (Alpine Skiing), Bormio
Sunday 8 February: Thomas Maloney Westgaard – 10km + 10km Skiathlon (Cross Country), Predazzo
Wednesday 11 February: Cormac Comerford – Super-G (Alpine Skiing), Bormio
Friday 13 February: Thomas Maloney Westgård – 10km Free (Cross Country), Predazzo
Saturday 14 February: Cormac Comerford – Giant Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Bormio
Sunday 15 February: Anabelle Zurbay – Giant Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Cortina
Monday 16 February: Cormac Comerford – Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Bormio
Wednesday 18 February: Anabelle Zurbay – Slalom Run 1 & 2 (Alpine Skiing), Cortina
Thursday 19 February: Ben Lynch – Halfpipe Qualification (Freestyle Skiing), Livigno
Friday 20 February: Ben Lynch – Halfpipe Final (Freestyle Skiing), Livigno
Saturday 21 February: Thomas Maloney Westgaard – 50km Classic (Cross Country), Predazzo
Sunday 22 February: Closing Ceremony – Verona (All athletes)
