Winter Olympics and India
1964
India’s forgettable Winter Olympics debut in 1964 in Austria when Polish-Indian athlete Jeremy Bujakowski came back unranked from the men’s downhill alpine skiing event.
1988
“India is tropical where does it snow?”, “How do you speak English?”, “You folks must be all vegetarian?”, "Do girls also ski in India?”
The ice-breakers were a s real as the snow was artificial in February 1988 when the iron-on letters on her ski jacket spelt ‘India’. Days before she zig-zagged through 63 pairs of p oles to the finish line, a lpine skier Shailaja Kumar —then a 21-year-old geology student from Delhi — wound her way through dinner conversations with athletes from 57 countries in Canad a’s Calgary, a rugged city which, like her, was making its Winter Olympics debut in 1988
Sh ailaja stood in front of the starting gates of the women’s slalom event at Calgary, her knees quivering at the thought of the dreaded nosedive, seven gates ahead.
It didn’t help that she was the only Indian woman or that many back home would’ve liked to see her fall. “There was a lot resting on us notdoing well,” says the former Olympian, speaking for fellow Indians, Gul Dev and Kishore Ratna Rai, who were competing in the men’s slalom event.
“There were many detractors who believed that India wasn’t ready,” says Shailaja, hinting at Winter Games Federation officials who had wanted to visit the 1988 Winter Games to assess India’s readiness.
Her typewritten report of the Games, which was rejected by India publications, cites a visiting French professor of alpine skiing who, before the team’s departure, had told the mediapersons that the Indian skiers would not even manage to complete the course. Until then, the course had been fairly smooth for this geology student. She had learnt to ski soo n after she learnt to walk largely because Shailaja — whose name means ‘daughter of the mountains’ — is the daughter of ‘Bull’ aka the late colonel Narinder Kumar.
2022
February 14, 2022: The Times of India
Arif Khan, finished 45th in the giant slalom event . The 31-year-old from Baramulla district in Jammu and Kashmir clocked a combined time of 2 minute 47. 24 seconds from two races in difficult weather conditions He was [a mere] 37. 89 seconds behind gold winner Marco Odermatt of Switzerland who clocked a combined time of 2:09. 35. (The Times of India)
