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!
Taking part in this event was in itself an achievement,it is a very technical sport where one has to keep one`s core center in balance and poles and arms to be used for additional balance,the upper half of the body does not move much and strong knees are needed as they are to be bent all the time,and the speed that they come down is amazing.
Mr Farooque, Abbas`s mentor and trainer should also be complemented for providing training and covering the expenses.Hopefully he will be able to train more young girls and boys for future games.
Niiice…not because we came 79th in the world…but because we beat India…LOL!
Great pictures. Great to see a Pakistani making it to this level, but more than that his personal story is inspiring.
Thank you to ATP for highlighting this story while the rest of media is tangled in its little cat and mouse games and our pseudo pundits spend all their time in their ‘drawing room’ political talk!
Some comments from the ATP Facebook Page:
– “gud luck Muhammad Abbas. Pakistan Zindabad.”
– “Good Luck Muhammad Abbas. God give u success…”
– “gar num ho to yeh zameen,
bari zarkhaiz hai saqi !!
All praise for Abbas”
– “i am very appreciate ABBAS who is really taleted man..1st i would like to say that pakistani’s people have alot of talent but it has hidden from us as we seem naseem,in short we ll have to show our talent in all over the world.
well done ABBAS……may ALLAH give you success”
– “In a race where people like Bode Miller did not even finish, he deserves a huge round of applause for his performance. I salute this man for representing our country.”
– “Amazing!! So proud of Abbas!!”
– “This guy deserves a rousing welcome home despite Pakistan having almost nil skiers!”
– “way to go Pakistan!”
– “WAY TO GO ABBAS:)”
– “MASHALLAH”
– “Great Work ! Congratulations !”
– “Mabarook”
– “G8…….”
– ” I’was yearinging to read something on this topic. I owe you for this.”
Well done Abbas for u did a successful attempt. I heard the news on TV and I felt really glad for him and Pakistaniat as well as this gave me the information abt Abbas.