Saudi Arabia, Winter Olympics power?

In August 2021, Rakan Alireza quit his corporate job to pursue a goal so audacious that no one else in his desert country had attempted it.

The 24-year-old began training to represent Saudi Arabia on the global stage as a cross-country skier.

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Alireza is one of the first athletes selected by the Saudi government, which has declared that the country’s lack of ski slopes and snow-capped mountains should not curb its winter sports ambitions. Saudi Arabia is searching across the country for athletes with skiing or snowboarding experience. They try to discover some promising newbies and invest heavily in training them to compete internationally.

While Alireza only skied recreationally at boarding school or while traveling abroad with his family, the Saudi Winter Sports Federation believed in his potential as a cross-country skier. Alireza competed in the CrossFit Games and achieved one of the highest rankings in Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials expect the fitness fanatic’s strength and stamina will help him ski across rugged terrain.

Alireza vividly recalls people’s skeptical reactions when he told his parents that his goal was to qualify for the Winter Olympics.

“Are you really going to give up your career to do this?” Alireza’s father asked in disbelief. “You’re competing against people who were born with snowboards on their feet!”

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Alireza’s mother was initially more supportive… until she learned he was leaving his consulting job at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Riyadh.

“She told me it didn’t make sense,” Alireza said. “She thought it was a hopeless case.”

Nearly five years later, even Alireza’s parents may admit that he was right to ignore their advice. The groundbreaking Alireza opened doors for generations of Saudis and helped redefine what was possible for winter sports athletes from the desert country, which has little snow.

Alireza made history on Friday when he became the second Saudi athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics and the first to represent the kingdom in cross-country skiing. Another Saudi athlete entering the Winter Olympics is alpine skier Fayik Abdi, who has qualified for Beijing 2022 and this year’s Olympics.

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While reaching the Olympic starting line is the culmination of years of consistent hard work and sacrifice for Alireza, this achievement is just the starting point for his country. Saudi Arabia hopes to become a future winter sports giant, the type that not only sends athletes to the Olympics but returns home with medals.

“I think the world will get to know us very quickly,” said former Bosnian skier Leon Svetlin, who has been the head coach and alpine sports director of the Saudi Winter Sports Federation since October 2022. “Have a vision for the future and have strong institutional support from the country. With these, you can achieve results in a shorter time.”

“Bambi on Ice”

The biggest reason Saudi Arabia shouldn’t be taken lightly as a potential winter sports powerhouse is its economic strength. With the oil-rich country still at least several years away from offering ski slopes within its borders, the Saudi government has gone to great lengths to house Europe’s winter sports athletes for several months.

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Alireza’s transformation from cross-country skiing novice to future Olympian began in August 2021, when the Saudi government sent him to Sweden to train in the famous underground ski tunnels, which are hilly and covered with year-round snow. It was there that he began working with top European coaches hired by the Saudi team to teach him proper technique.

Just minutes into Alireza’s first training session, the young Saudi realized he had underestimated the challenge he faced. It took him five minutes to step into the cross-country ski bindings. Once he does, he’s like Bambi on ice.

“I was falling all the time,” Alireza said, “and all these little kids were whizzing past me. It was kind of scary to see them compared to where I was.”

A desire to learn and a willingness to suffer helped Alireza progress. He trains for up to five hours a day, alternating between skiing and high-intensity endurance training. While in Europe, he took advantage of the opportunity to ski on the snow. When back home in the desert city of Jeddah, he would roller skate, sometimes strapping a tire to his back to mimic the drag of snow conditions.

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Those efforts were enough to help Alireza earn a spot at this Olympics, but the gap between the 29-year-old Saudi and European or North American athletes who grew up skiing remains wide. When Alireza arrived in Italy, he was ranked outside the top 2,000 in the world in both men’s sprint and long-distance cross-country. He estimates he has skied less than 200 times in his life.

“I still consider myself a beginner,” Alireza said. “You can see it in my fundamentals. In a game, I’ll see someone doing something and I’ll try to copy it. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, I’ll learn.”

It’s no mystery to the Saudis that unless their winter sports athletes start skiing early, they are unlikely to challenge for the podium on the global stage. They must find ways to expose Saudi boys and girls to skiing and snowboarding in childhood and create pathways for those who show promise.

“That’s one of the biggest challenges for us,” Sweetling admitted. “It usually takes 10-15 years of continuous training to reach the peak of skiing. In Saudi Arabia, we don’t have ski resorts yet, so it’s unrealistic for children to start training from a very young age and travel thousands of miles to Europe.”

Desert ski resort?

A potential solution to Saudi Arabia’s snow problems is an ambitious and expensive project. In 2022, Saudi Arabia unveiled plans to build a sprawling, futuristic outdoor ski resort called Trojena as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s plan to boost tourism, attract major events and diversify the country’s oil-reliant economy.

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While the mountains where the ski resort is located occasionally get snow during the winter, it’s not enough to make it a winter sports destination. Therefore, Saudi Arabia intends to rely on the most advanced snowmaking technology to create more than 30 kilometers of ski resorts.

Can the project be completed in time for Saudi Arabia to fulfill its responsibilities as the designated host of the 2029 Asian Winter Games? It’s not clear yet. Satellite images taken last year showed construction was underway at the ski resort, but delays reportedly led the Olympic Council of Asia to start making contingency plans elsewhere in the region.

Sweetling said whenever a ski resort opens, it has the potential to transform the development of winter sports athletes in Saudi Arabia. The same goes for planned indoor ski resorts in the Saudi capital Riyadh and elsewhere.

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“Hopefully in the next few years we’ll have the opportunity to train and play there,” Sveterin said. “I think this will allow us to find younger athletes and create a better platform for the future.”

Sweetling is also interested in the idea that roller skating could be a training option for Saudi kids interested in cross-country skiing but without access to snow. He believes this could help Saudi Arabia achieve high levels of performance in cross-country skiing faster than other skiing and snowboarding disciplines.

It would also help to have a trailblazer like Alireza, who kicks open doors that were once closed. When Alireza and his fellow Saudi skiers first started training, he remembers coaches from other national teams openly mocking them for their incompetence.

“Those coaches have become fans of ours now,” Alireza said. “When they see our progress, they cheer for us and support us.”

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Alireza is very proud to be competing in the Olympics, but he hopes this is just the beginning of winter sports in his desert country.

There is already another young Saudi cross-country skier pushing Alireza. His goal is to be better than Alireza, and Alireza supports him. He often said to newcomers: “I hope you let me retire, but I’ll never make it easy for you.

“I told him that if I go to the Olympics, it won’t be anything special anymore,” Alireza said. “Are you going to be the second person to do this? No one really cares. Go do something better.”