'It’s kind of hard to believe that we are at the Olympics,” says Fayik Abdi, who has transitioned from a Utah ski bum to the first Saudi to compete in the Winter Games.
Fayik Abdi, of Saudi Arabia, carries his national flag into the stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 4, 2022, in Beijing.Saudi Arabia is no one’s winter wonderland. With its sandy deserts and 70-degree average winter temperature, a snowflake would evaporate into the air long before it had a chance to coat the ground.“My friends always tell me, like, there’s no correlation between Saudi and skiing.
“I love skiing. I’m super passionate about it,” Abdi said. “So any challenge involving skiing I’m basically up for, and especially at that stage when I was really trying to create something and do something with skiing.” Florida wasn’t any better. Abdi moved to a boarding school there at age 14 to pursue a career in soccer, the sport both of his brothers play professionally. Injuries kept setting him back, however, so upon graduation he gave up on that dream and started pursuing another one. He headed to Utah to become a ski bum.
He started researching ways to ski in the country and came across the name of Heinrik May, a pioneer in sand skiing. May told him about an opportunity to be a snow tester and a commercial skier for Neom, a resort in Saudi Arabia that aspires to have the second-largest indoor ski area in the world. . Competing on the FIS national championship circuit, a step below the World Cup, Abdi and another ski racer, Salman Al-Howaish, entered the 2021-22 season in October with the goal to race well enough to earn a start at the Olympics. Both met the threshold but Abdi, who was ranked higher, was awarded a place in the history books.
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