Muhammad Abbas has come a long way from the days when he and his friends would strap rough wooden planks to their legs with nylon rope and go skiing.
Yesterday, the 24-year-old was set to become the first Pakistani to compete at a Winter Olympics when he started in the giant slalom.
Abbas, who in faltering English expressed his excitement and delight on Monday, is at something of a disadvantage against the mighty Austrians and Swiss as yesterday’s would be his first race of the year.
“In the last two years, we have trained only eight weeks,” his coach, Zahid Farooq, said. “We had two weeks in Austria in 2008 and six in 2009.”
“We have a very small slope in Pakistan that is only 500m long,” he said. “The vertical drop is only about 80m to 100m, so we can’t really train but we just keep ourselves in touch.”
Abbas is a beneficiary of camps organized by the International Ski Federation to help developing nations. He has also been assisted by the Pakistani Air Force welfare fund.
The story began in 1996 when Farooq was posted to Naltar in the foothills of the Karakoram mountains, as a survival trainer.
“Muhammad started skiing on home-made wooden skis,” Farooq recalled. “They don’t have much resources to buy equipment so this was their pastime, what they did in their free time.”
“They would chop off some wood and chisel it, make it into thin bits to look like a true ski and they would tie it to their feet with rubber or with nylon rope,” Farooq said.
“Once we saw their passion for skiing, on their small skis with no ski boots, we arranged about eight pairs of skis for them,” he said.
“We held a trial and we picked 16 so they could share the skis — one group in the morning and one in the afternoon. From there, we picked up these boys and started sending them to Iran for the junior championships in 1999,” he said.
“These boys hypnotized us,” he said. “We are so much in love with their passion that we actually just got together and thought this has to be done.”
Pakistan’s resources are severely stretched. Where others have coaches, managers and ski technicians, Pakistan have Farooq.
“I also act as a physical trainer, I keep them on track and make sure they go to training ... I am the cook as well,” he said. “And if some equipment is required to be repaired, I do that.”
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