MALAM JABBA: Skiers sped over the snow. The snowboarders surfed through it. In the year of the Winter Olympics, the Red Bull Homerun ended the season on the slopes of Malam Jabba on Sunday with the owners of the resort hoping to produce Pakistan’s first representatives at the quadrennial Games from the region.

Pakistan’s only representative at this year’s Games in Beijing was skier Mohammad Karim, who failed to finish in the men’s slalom race in his third Olympic appearance. He’s one of three Winter Olympians from Pakistan — the others being Mohammad Abbas, who was Pakistan’s first representative back in 2010, and Syed Human.

All three have come from Naltar in Gilgit-Baltistan, which was developed as the country’s first ski resort by the Pakistan Air Force in 1958. It was four years after that when the Austrian ambassador to Pakistan suggested that a ski resort be built at Malam Jabba. But while time between their respective inceptions isn’t much, it’s clear that Naltar has taken the lead in producing Winter Olympians.

Part of it is also due to the uncertainty in Swat valley during the first decade of this century. Pakistan’s war against the Taliban insurgents saw the resort getting burnt down in 2008. Tobacco company Samsons revived the resort after being awarded the lease by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to restore the hotel and other infrastructure including the chair-lift, while they also added a zip-line.

But that’s not just it. Now they want to unleash the sporting potential of Malam Jabba and project it to the world. As part of the overhaul, South African snowmaker Martin Schultz was roped in as the resort’s general manager to achieve that. He’s looking to have a proper ski school to train up-and-coming youngsters and for events like the Homerun, which came to Malam Jabba for a second year to celebrate the end of the season, to keep happening.

“The talent here is enormous,” Schultz, who started off as a surfing instructor before transitioning into snow, told Dawn. “The only thing we need to do is to channel it in a proper way and that hasn’t been done here. That is what we want to change. I’m sure we can produce athletes who can make it to the Winter Olympics.

“With the ski school we are looking to bring in specialist coaches who will offer targeted training to youngsters here. And then, events like the Homerun which attract an international audience and bring in foreign athletes help provide the boost these guys need.”

REGIONAL RIVALRY

Unlike last year, when Austrian freeskier Nadine Wallner came for the inaugural edition of the Homerun, this year foreign athletes weren’t able to come. Karim was asked to make an appearance, fresh from the Olympics where he did not finish in his event, by his close friend Wakeel Ahmed but didn’t come.

“I’d asked him to come to the Homerun but he opted out of it,” Wakeel, who brought athletes from Naltar including national snowboarding champion Khalid Hussain, told Dawn.

Karim’s decision is seemingly down to the rivalry between Naltar and Malam Jabba. Naltar is the preferred choice of slope for the Winter Sports Federation of Pakistan and hosted the National Championships last month.

But with Schultz in, Malam Jabba is hoping to compete.

“Of course we want to show that we’re at the same level,” said Schultz. “We’re trying to prepare the best slopes and are also looking at opening two more slopes in Kalam and Naran valleys. It will help the local athletes there and broaden our talent pool and develop them.”

One of the brightest prospects in Malam Jabba is 14-year-old skier Azra Bibi. The youngster, who has a hearing impairment which means she can’t speak and used to sell boiled eggs at the resort with her brother, was the quickest among female athletes at the Homerun.

Schultz is hoping to help take her to the Olympics, where athletes with hearing impairment can take part. Czech bobsledder Jakub Nosek, who took part in the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, is one example.

“She’s a special talent,” said Schultz. “This summer, I’m trying to get a special coach for her who can train her with sign language and hopefully we can go on to achieve bigger things.”

But snowboarder Khalid, who’s targeting the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games, informs that it isn’t easy for an athlete to have Olympics dreams in Pakistan.

“The WSFP only chooses players of the PAF based in Naltar for further training and Olympics,” he told Dawn. “There are better athletes in Naltar who play for GB Scouts and GB Winter Sports Federation [whom he represents] but they are never afforded a chance.

“I’m trying to get better and better at snowboarding and maybe I can push my way through to the Olympics.”

In an attempt to contact the WSFP for their version, Dawn reached out on both its contacts listed on the Pakistan Olympic Association website, only to receive a reply that they were “wrong numbers”.

FAR AND WIDE

Khalid, though, isn’t the only athlete to accuse the WSFP of favouritism. Several athletes Dawn spoke to during the Homerun said that the federation isn’t helping aspiring athletes in areas far and wide in Pakistan’s northern reaches which are blessed with mountainous slopes.

Ali Hasnain, the winner of the snowboard competition, said that his fellow athletes in the remote Madaklasht valley in Chitral have to rely on foreigners for modern equipment and gear. In the past, people in Madaklasht — like those in Naltar — had been practising on wooden skis.

Ali informed that it was only thanks to French freeskier Julien ‘Pica’ Herry that people in his region now have modern equipment to hone their skills. “Pica is doing a lot for us by getting all that stuff through to us,” he told Dawn after finishing his race. “It’s helped fresh talent emerge.”

Having also won the snowboard competition at last year’s Homerun, Ali said that winning the title helped increase his profile. “Even though it’s a celebratory race, it’s a competition for us and we want to win,” he added. “It’s always good to win an event that is held in 20 other countries of the world.”

Such is the event’s appeal, that this year it drew two freeskiers — Naveed Spicher and Shah Daulat — from the distant Shimshal village in Hunza district of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Unlike Naltar, Madaklasht or Malam Jabba, where winter sports have been contested for several decades, they’re a novel concept in Shimshal. “That too thanks to foreign athletes who came looking for new places to ski,” Naveed told Dawn.

“We’ve never had wooden skis in Shimshal … we’ve trained on modern gear,” added Naveed, whose skis were given to him by Andrzej Bargiel — the Polish ski mountaineer who became the first man to descend K2 on his skis in 2018.

Modern gear isn’t a problem for Malam Jabba. But the truly groundbreaking moment of modern times for the resort will come when it produces an athlete capable of making it to the Winter Olympics.

“Imagine what that would do for this region,” Schultz said as a three-year-old kid, in his full skiing attire and skis, sat down to watch the competitions of the Homerun. “You just have to get that first one in there and many will aspire to follow.”

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2022