ST MORTIZ, Switzerland: Afghans Alishah Farhang and Sajjad Husaini made history at the World Ski Championships on Thursday when they took part in qualification for the men’s giant slalom, the first step towards competing at next year’s Winter Olympics.
Farhang, 26, and Husaini, 25, the first Afghans to compete at the world championships, are beneficiaries of the Bamyan Ski Club, a Zurich-based non-profit organisation established by Swiss journalist Christof Zuercher in 2011 to support ski sports in Afghanistan.
As the two best skiers in Afghanistan, the pair of wannabe racers were brought here for professional training, local coach Andreas Hanni overseeing their development.
“When we first met three years ago, it looked like survival skiing!” said Hanni.
“We had to go back and start from zero. In the last three weeks, it’s been amazing. We never imagined they’d be FIS racers. Having the world championships here has given us a boost.”
Hanni insisted that he and his Afghan charges, who received a harsh wake-up call as they arrived barely able to do five push-ups, would be taking “little steps at a time”.
“We’ll see how the race goes and then we’ll see,” he said of possible Olympic participation. “We dream big.”
Sandwiched between the likes of Tonga’s Kasete Naufahu Skeen, Mexico’s 58-year-old German prince Hubertus Von Hohenlohe — in his 17th world champs — Haiti’s Jean-Pierre Roy, Malaysian Othman Mirzan and Madagascar’s Andy Randriamiarisoa, the Afghans slotted in as “exotic racers” for the qualifying race, the top 50 going on to take part in Friday’s giant slalom proper.
Starting with bib number 119, Farhang came in almost 29 seconds slower than the winning time of 58.09sec set by Spain’s Juan Del Campo, while Husaini, starting 121st, was at 35.82sec.
They at least beat Tongan Skeen, who has admitted that he is “not by any stretch of the imagination an experienced skier”.
“Nor have I lead a life of athletic pursuit. In fact the truth is quite the opposite. Until six months ago I smoked, I drank too much, I ate badly and I didn’t exercise at all,” Skeen says.
The last place, one back in 106th, was taken by Roy, the France-based Haitian who finished a massive 44.89sec off the pace.
Sat in the Bamyan Ski Club bar in downtown St Moritz, one could easily forget the moneyed, glitzy surroundings of a town which revels in ostentatious displays of wealth.
With walls bedecked with photos of Afghan skiers, empty ghee cans serve as lampshades in the bar and people relax back on rugs and cushions in a scene more reminiscent of a cafe somewhere deep in the Hindu Kush than eastern Switzerland.
Appropriately, an “Afghan Mule” is included on the bar’s cocktail list, selling for an eye-watering 16 Swiss francs (15 euros, $16). That is softened by news that five percent of all takings go directly to supporting the Afghan project which aims to establish a permanent ski centre in Bamyan — a mountainous province in central Afghanistan — and put in the first lifts in the neighbouring Koh-e-Baba mountain range.
“We had the opportunity to come to Switzerland and St Moritz,” said Husaini. “Now I’m a good skier. Compared to Europe I’m not very professional, but in Afghanistan I’m very professional!”
Farhang, who explained that his family had to flee the Taliban regime which famously destroyed the two 6th-century Buddha statues in Bamyan in 2001, added: “I never expected to be the centre of so much media attention.
“After the Taliban, skiing has been a positive change and now going on to debuting at the world championships and hopefully the Olympics.
“My success will be to bring my experience back to Afghanistan, to encourage skiing there. It will not be to keep it to myself.”
