For Arif Khan, ski is the limit

Arif Khan is fidgety, excited, and chatty. Peeping animatedly from the matchbox-size screen, his infectious smile remains a fixture of our chat, rickety internet notwithstanding. When you have created history in a 17th century town, the happy high is perhaps hard to let go.

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Last month, in the freezing town of Kolasin in northern Montenegro, Khan skied his way to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics (February 4-20) giant slalom event, becoming the first Indian to qualify for multiple events at the Winter Games. He had earlier qualified for the slalom in alpine skiing.

For a man whose quest to compete at the Olympics saw him empty his family's savings, put his wedding on hold, and resort to crowdfunding, this was a moment seeped in solemness as much as celebration.

"It has been quite a ride. I have been pushing for an Olympics participation for ten years now. I came close on last two occasions, but fell short due to lack of support and training," he said.

This time though, Khan, with some generosity from his sponsors, managed to base himself in Austria to prepare himself for the season. An international ski season typically lasts eight months a year, starting March-April, and Khan couldn't have let another season pass by. He got himself enrolled at a ski training academy in Austria where he had access to elite coaching.

"That's when I realised, the gap between me and European athletes is roughly two seasons. With proper training and exposure, that can be bridged," he said.

Before Austria, Khan's training, for much of his career, has been quite ad-hoc. He would go abroad on exposure trips for 2-3 weeks, and when the money dried out, he would fly back. Once home, he would try and implement the training principles on the slopes in Gulmarg, hoping for enough of those lessons to seep in unsupervised to prepare him for the gruelling international competition cycle.

"It is not perfect, but do I have a choice? I never had a proper personal coach. Even the surface where I train in India is not ideal. The snow in Gulmarg is soft, but the international tournaments are played on especially designed hard snow that is injected with water. That's why travelling for competitions is so important," he said.

Khan would make the most of his handful of foreign trips by hanging around with other teams and their coaches, and making mental notes of the training tips and tricks.

In Austria, he is part of a five-member expat group of skiers who pool money to hire a personal coach whenever they travel for competitions together.

"The coaching that we get at the academy is fine, but top athletes travel with a team of coaches. We don't have that luxury, so we have devised this method," he chuckled.

It is a method that comes with no guarantees, but is a few notches better than having no coach or infrastructure at all. Though for the meet in Kolasin where he sealed his second Olympic quota, the group didn't have enough money to hire a coach, so Khan competed without one, relying once again on his experience accrued over four World Championships appearances and the odd eavesdropping.

"The cost of hiring a travelling contingent is immense. Just one personal coach will charge me close to 450 Euros a week. Elite athletes sometimes travel with a ten-member contingent replete with the physio, psychologist, and what not," Khan said. "My biggest goal is to put India on the skiing map. I was a bit amazed to see that not a lot of people from Europe are even aware that India has the sprawling Himalayas that can be used for sport. States like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand have the terrain ready to get things started, and I think we must look at the potential of winter sports in India."

Khan's foray into skiing was not accidental. Hailing from Tangmarg town in Kashmir's restive Baramulla district, he grew up amidst ski equipment--his father Yaseen Khan runs a ski rental shop for tourists. Located less than 15 kilometres from the famous ski town of Gulmarg on the lower slopes of the Pir Panjal range, Tangmarg was an ideal training ground for the young Khan, who learned the basics of sport from his father.

"My father became a ski instructor and a ski guide later in his career, and he taught me the basics. I did my first ski when I was four," Khan said.

In 2003, Khan won his first nationals gold on his maiden attempt, and at 16, made his international debut in giant slalom at an event in Yomase, Japan. There has been no looking back since.

The 15-year journey has seen him traverse boundaries, but there are still many more to cross. He feels the weight of being from Kashmir and a "sense of larger responsibility because of who I am and where I come from."

"There are memories that I don't wish to be reminded of, of course. I know the complexities of the region where I come from, and somewhere deep in my heart, I want to show people that there can be an alternate way of life too. I hope whatever I have done changes something."

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