Tongan skier

The 36-year-old finished 107th of 108 competitors who completed both runs in the qualification race in Åre, Sweden overnight, with 12 of the original starters failing to finish.

The top 50 finishers automatically qualified for the main World Championships race on Friday.

A further 25 spots in the main race were originally reserved for skiers from countries, such as Tonga, that have only one representative at the event but officials changed the criteria after the race.

The giant slalom competitor underwent surgery last month to reconstruct his right anterior cruciate ligament, after he ruptured it during training in New Zealand.

That's ruled out any last hope of him qualifying for February's Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

"It wasn't just my ACL that I did in the end: it was I did my ACL rupture completely, I tore my medial ligaments as well and my meniscus and I had a little fracture in there too for good measure," he said.

Competing in the men's giant slalom qualification race, the 34 year old finished 104th out of 105 competitors who completed the first run.

He crossed the finish line 36 seconds behind the race winner Juan Del Campo from Spain and the only rival he managed to beat was a 53 year old from Haiti.

Skeen failed to finish his second run and ended unranked, failing to progress to the main competition.

Photo: Supplied (Tongan skier Kasete Skeen). 

The 34-year-old will contest the giant slalom qualifying race, as he continues his quest to reach the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Skeen has three competitive races under his belt and said momentum has been building in his campaign.

"Starting from the bottom and working my way up, really, I didn't expect to receive that much support," he said.

"At my last race...I had a group of young guys who were also racing and were asking me about what I was doing and waiting for me at the end to cheer me across the finish line.

The 34-year-old was born and raised in London but his father's family are from Vava'u and Tongatapu.

RNZ reports he has been based in Italy for training and has three competitive races under his belt in preparation for his World Championship debut on Thursday.

Skeen said it's all about improvement.

"I think it's still early days obviously - every day is another step on the way basically," he said.

 The 34 year old was born and raised in London but his father's family are from Vava'u and Tongatapu.

He said the idea of competing at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea quickly snowballed from a pipe dream to a serious target.

"It kind of started off as a joke I flippantly made over dinner one evening" he said.

"The friend that we were with said,"no that's a good idea, you should do it." He said, "Get on this. We'll help you sort it out."