India has only one man in Winter Olympics
December to February is the best time to visit India's Kashmir in winter. While the maximum temperature occasionally touches 10 degrees Celsius, the minimum temperature comes down to -8 degrees. The weather in Kashmir during winters is pleasant, the surroundings become duskier and the bone-chilling cold can make you numb.
Hence, if India is to send someone to compete in the Winter Olympics in Beijing, he has to be from Kashmir. Yes, an alpine skier from Kashmir, Mohammad Arif Khan is the lone Indian participant at the Beijing event.
Though China faced some opposition to the event from the West, India didn't boycott it. While the US and its European allies raised the Tibetan and Uyghur issues, India made it clear that it will not join calls from the West, although there is tension along the Line of Control.
Arif khan will compete in the Slalom event- alpine skiing. For Beijing 2022, Khan has already won quotas in both men’s slalom and giant slalom – making him the first Indian to qualify for two separate events directly. Khan is a national and South Asian slalom champion in alpine skiing.
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| Arif Khan |
“As children, we used to play football and cricket, but there was no playground around us,” Khan said, “Skiing was the only convenient sport for us.”
Khan’s father Yasin Khan owns a ski equipment shop in Gulmarg and so, he was always close to the sport. He first took it up at the age of four. “It was in 1994,” Khan remembered, “We had to walk about 500 metres to the ski shop. And there was thick snow. My father had groomed a small ski slope just outside the shop. We started (skiing) at around 9.30 AM and went on for hours.”
Khan turned to competitive skiing when he was ten years old and steadily rose up the ladder. At the age of twelve, Khan won a gold medal in the slalom in his first appearance at the national championship. He made his international debut for India when he was 16 at a junior international ski federation (FIS) event in Yomase, Japan. He finished 23rd in the giant slalom. In 2011, Khan won two gold medals - in the slalom and giant slalom - at the South Asian Winter Games, the only edition held thus far.
Khan’s first taste of the FIS World Ski Championships came in 2013. He finished 59th in the slalom and 91st in the giant slalom and was unable to move past the qualification stage. Since then, Khan has taken part in three more world championships, with his best result being 45th in the giant slalom at the 2021 edition in Italy. It was the first time he qualified for the final in any world championship event.
Skiing being an expensive sport, most of Khan's funding comes from his father, who poured his income from the ski equipment shop into his son’s career. Khan also doubles up as a skiing instructor or a coach occasionally to make up for the shortfall. Ahead of the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, Khan had to turn to crowdfund to train and cover other expenses in the lead up to the Games. However, he fell short by a small margin and his dream was left unrealized.
In 2021, he had planned to get married in September but decided instead to put all his energies into qualifying for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
“I want to put my country on the skiing map,” Khan Said. “If I can achieve something, the global skiing community will take note of where I am from. It might make them see India as a potential top skiing destination.”
India in Winter Olympics
Alpine skiing has been a key part of India’s presence at the Winter Olympics over the years. Alpine skiers represented India at 1964, 1968, 1988, 1992, 2006, 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics.
Alpine skiing is one of the Winter Olympics’ signature competitions. Often referred to as downhill skiing, it involves competitors skiing down a snow-covered mountain slope as quickly as possible. It’s held in a time trial format, as opposed to skiers racing each other. Overall, alpine skiing has five events - downhill, slalom, giant slalom, super-G and combined. Medals are on offer for both men and women at each event. A mixed team event - a parallel slalom competition - was added for the 2018 Winter Olympics and is a part of the 2022 Winter Olympics as well.
Slalom is considered the fastest event among alpine skiing. Competitors ski down a slope that has a vertical descent of 180m to 220m for men or 140m to 180m for women. Skiers pass through ‘gates’ or two plastic poles. Each gate has a minimum width of 4m and a maximum of 6m. Skiers often knock over the poles to find the fastest route. Slalom skiers have to pass through two courses. Eliminations take place after the first course based on timings. The competitor with the lowest combined time across the two courses is declared the winner. Switzerland’s Edy Reinalter and American Gretchen Fraser were the first gold medal winners in the men’s and women’s slalom events, respectively, at the 1948 Winter Olympics.
Similar to the slalom, giant slalom also involves skiing down a slope and passing through gates with turns. However, in giant slalom, the vertical descent for skiers is between 250-450m for men and 250-400m for women. Each gate has a minimum width of 4m and a maximum of 8m. Skiers get two runs down the slope and the winner is determined by the fastest cumulative time.
The giant slalom was introduced to the Winter Olympics in 1952 in Oslo, Norway. Norwegian Stein Eriksen was crowned the first men’s giant slalom Winter Olympic champion and the USA’s Andrea Lawrence won the women’s giant slalom gold at the 1952 Winter Olympics.
Compared to the Summer Games, where India has featured in 25 editions, the country's tryst with the Winter Olympics has been relatively few and far between. Considering India is a sub-tropical country, the affinity for winter sports is less and therefore, infrastructure is not as developed as those needed for sports in the Summer Games.
Though the Winter Games began way back in 1924, it took India 40 years to put up its first athlete in the quadrennial showpiece. At the 1964 Games in Austria, Jeremy Bujakowski became the first Indian to compete at the Winter Olympics. He was the only Indian at that edition and competed in the men's downhill alpine skiing event. Born in Lithuania to Polish parents before moving to India, and having spent time in the USA for his studies, Jeremy Bujakowski had a lot more exposure to winter sports than an average Indian at the time. Bujakowski couldn’t complete his race at the 1964 Games but went back to compete in three events - men’s downhill, slalom and giant slalom – at the 1968 edition. This time, he finished the downhill and giant slalom events, ranking 53rd and 65th, respectively.
Post the Bujakowski era, India skipped the Winter Olympics for 20 years. India returned to the Winter Olympics at the Calgary 1988 Games in Canada. Barring the 1992 Games, Indians have taken part in all Winter Games since then.
India sent a contingent of three to Calgary in 1988. Gul Dev and Kishor Rahtna Rai competed in the men’s slalom event while Shailaja Kumar became the first Indian woman to compete at the Winter Olympics. Kumar finished 28th in women’s slalom – the best result by any Indian Winter Olympian at the time. The next time India had a woman competing at the Winter Games was 18 years later with Neha Ahuja featured in women’s slalom and giant slalom at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy. Ahuja is the first Indian woman to qualify for the Winter Olympics by meeting minimum qualifying standards. Kumar’s slot was an invitational one. To date, Kumar and Ahuja are the only two women Winter Olympians from India.
India's history at the Winter Olympics is incomplete without the mention of six-time Winter Olympian Shiva Keshavan.
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| Arif Khan |
Luge is often considered the fastest sport at the Winter Olympics, with lugers hitting top speeds of more than 130km/h. Athletes are required to lay in the supine position - face up and feet first - on a sledge and have to slide down a course, which has small turns, as fast as possible. Flat on their backs, lugers steer the sledge and change direction by shifting weight with the help of their calf muscles and using their shoulders to slide around.
Shiva Keshavan qualified for his first Winter Games in 1998 at Nagano, Japan. Aged just 16 back then, Keshavan also became the youngest luger to qualify for the Winter Olympics at the time. Keshavan has gone on to compete in five more Winter Olympics since then, making him the most-decorated Winter Olympian in Indian history.
Interestingly, at Sochi 2014, Keshavan competed under the (International Olympic Committee) IOC flag rather than the Indian tricolour. Heading into the Sochi Games, the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) was serving a ban and the three Indian athletes, including Keshavan, started the Games as Independent Olympic Participants (IOP). However, the IOA was reinstated midway through the Sochi Games, which allowed the Indian athletes to finish the edition officially representing the Indian flag. But Shiva Keshavan had already finished his event before the ban was lifted and his results were recorded under IOP. Shiva Keshavan retired after the 2018 Winter Games.
India is yet to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.
China's Winter Plans
But, China is using the Games to promote winter sports, many of which are new to most Chinese, for fitness and business opportunities. Many in Beijing have long enjoyed winter ice skating on canals and lakes. But now, young Chinese are expanding their aspirations from basketball, football and gymnastics to sports such as hockey and skiing.
The 2022 Winter Olympics will be the first Winter Olympics in China, and the last of three consecutive Olympics in East Asia (after the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan). As its second Olympic Games, Beijing will be the first city to have ever hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The Winter Games will take place without foreign tourists or ordinary spectators under China's "zero tolerance" strategy that aims to keep the virus out of the country.
The government and private companies have built ice rinks and ski runs. Public schools are adding skating and other winter sports. Parents are opening their wallets to pay for hockey teams and skating lessons. Villages near ski slopes are building inns to serve well-heeled tourists.
At the Vanke Shijinglong Ski Resort, visitor numbers have risen by 15% to 20% a year since Beijing and neighbouring Zhangjiakou were awarded the Winter Games in 2015. At least 8,000 people in Beijing are on hockey teams, People's Daily quoted Xing He, the deputy secretary-general of the Beijing Ice Hockey Association. Nationwide, more than 450 ice rinks and 300 snow resorts have been built since 2015, though some have closed at times during the pandemic, said Li Sen, director of the Beijing Olympic organizing committee's General Planning Department.
Post- COVID, foreign sports brands see growth opportunities in China. Winter brings happiness and prosperity. Hence, the English poet William Blake said: "In seed time, learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy."
© Ramachandran
