To commemorate UAE National Day, the UAE will dispatch Emirati Skiers, a twelve-man skiing team to raise the country’s flag at an altitude of over 3,000 meters above sea level in the French Alps. The team will be dispatched to the Val Thorens region in France on December 2 to mark the day, an exciting feat that blends both sporting excellence and national pride.
The trip falls under the newly launched National Skiing Talents initiative, launched last November 14 in pursuit of local skiing talent. Six months of preparation and training preceded the expedition, and several photographers will be there to chronicle the experience when the athletes take on the challenge of skiing at high altitudes.
The program is designed to prepare Emirati skiers in a more professional environment outside their home soil in Ski Dubai. Said partner and founder Ibrahim Ali Khadem of UAE Skiers, “These intense training sessions are to prepare skiers in case they could join global competitions and create sporting achievements as well as cultural ones.”.
The participants are selected at the stages of Ski Dubai, and only those who have skied professionally in the relevant skiing field will make it to this trip. Although the program targets adults above 18 years, youngsters with talent can also be considered if they attain the specified levels of performance.
This event has been in running since 2013 when the UAE Skiers hoisted the flag at the Sölden ski resort in Austria, standing at a height of 3,340 meters. The initiative spread to Switzerland, namely, Matterhorn’s summit, and lately, to France’s Bouclet summit-the striking evidence of increasing aspirations of Emirati athletes on the international scene.
