Adil Najam
Muhammad Abbas made Pakistan’s Winter Olympics debut today.
We already have a post on Abbas’s remarkable trip from learning skiing on home-made planks in Pakistan’s Northern Areas to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, but these Associated Press pictures from his run today are quite stunning and we thought they deserve a separate post.
The event was Alpine Skiing – Men’s Giant Slalom. I have only now learnt that Giant Slalom is a type of alpine skiing where the skier has to ski between sets of between 56 to 70 poles or gates. From what I can understand of the results, of the 81 who finished, Mohammad Abbas was at number 79 with a time of 3:20.58; trailing behind him were Marino Cardelli of San Marino and Jamyang Namgial of India. Gold was taken by Swiss skier Carlo Janka with a time of 2:37.83, Silver by Norwevian Kjetil Jansrud and Bronze by Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal.
It is not often that one sees such spectacular snow action pictures of a Pakistani skier, so enjoy!
Very nice set of pictures and they give one a great sense of pride. Well done Mr. Abbass. Thank you for giving us something to feel happy about.
Love the first photograph.
It says it all.
Including the gloves!
Adil, it will be a great service if you can get Mohd Abas’ biography published in your blog. I am curious as to how this young man learned skiing so well that he is competing in Olympics. His achievement is against all odds. In Pakistan sports facilities for individual sports are very limited.
WOW. WOW. WOW.
Wonderful photographs.
Well done, Muhammad Abbas.
You make us proud!
wonderful photos Adil bhai :) First photo tells a lot in terms of Abbas’ expressions. The first photo of last set is also great – the one which shows Abbas in action with dark background.