We are heading down the proverbial slopes as we get ready to conclude this lengthy series on Olympic athletes competing at the Winter Games in Vancouver.
Today, we profile Muhammad Abbas, 24, an employee of the Pakistani Air Force who is also the first Pakistiani athelete to compete in alpine skiing for his country.
Abbas finished 79th in the competition earlier in the week. The giant slalom event featured 103 skiiers from 60 countries. Abbas finished higher than some other low-ranked skiers, including Dow Travers from The Cayman Islands and Jamyang Namgiel from Pakistan's traditional rival India.
According to the English-language Pakistani news web site dawn.com, Abbas said he was thrilled to be on the same as American skiing sensation Bode Miller and Norwegian great Aksel Lund Svindal (whom we profiled earlier).
Abbas fist skied on the hills of his Himalayan mountain village in wooden skis which his father made for him.
One of the challenges for Pakistani skiers is finding the time and place to train as Abbas' coach Zahid Farooq told dawn.com:
"In the last two years, we have trained only eight weeks," Farooq said. "We had two weeks in Austria in '08, and six weeks in '09."
Farooq also told Reuters that there is only one small slope, which is 500 meters long, in Pakistan.
The Pakistani coach told dawn.com that in addition to arranging training time for Abbas, he also helps him by cooking, cleaning and interpreting for him.
Farroq added that he hopes to have a female skier on the Pakistani Winter Olympics at the 2014 games in Soshi, Russia.
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