Artificial snow the future of Pakistan skiing, says Karim

Winter Olympian returns home after month-long training in Europe

KARACHI: Pakistan’s 2014 Winter Olympian Muhammad Karim is back from a month-long training in Europe, and now wants to take part in international competitions regularly.

The 19-year-old returned to Pakistan on December 21 after training at the International Ski Federation (FIS) training camps in Austria and Italy.

He said the experience has changed him and made him a better skier than before.

“Training with the best facilities in the world is just what I needed,” Karim told The Express Tribune. “I trained with the best coaches in Austria and Italy and the facilities, especially the snow and the slopes in Europe, are completely different to what we see in Pakistan. It’s poles apart.”

Karim said he was amazed to discover that Italians and Austrians manufacture artificial snow, while in Pakistan, the skiers have to wait for snowfall to take place in order to hold competitions.

“In Austria and Italy, they have artificial snow,” said Karim. “It’s a necessity for international events, because it’s harder than natural snow, and it requires the skiers to be more skilful and technical with their game. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the local slopes are great, but it’s the snow that we need to focus on. We still rely on labourers to make the track manually. We really need a snow grooming machine here.”

He added that it was an achievement for the Ski Federation of Pakistan (SFP) to build a chairlift in Naltar and expand the slope, which is now 1,600 metres wide.

“There are improvements in the local infrastructure, but there’s still a long way to go. We had hard snow event at the Olympics, which stayed in such good shape that it didn’t go soft or bumpy even with at least a hundred athletes using it.”

Meanwhile, the Gilgit-Baltistan based skier said that besides training, he competed on two slalom races at the camp and also improved his FIS points.

“Earlier, I had 146 points, now I have 110 points, which for me is encouraging,” said Karim. “The lesser the points the better, but I will need more international events. The SFP president has promised to send me abroad at these camps at least thrice next year.”

The teenager further said that he also improved his timing on the slalom and giant slalom events by three to four seconds.

 

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