Steady climb
If anyone else were to suggest the idea of a world champion skier raised and trained in Dubai, the concept alone would seem preposterous.
Mildred Fernandes talks to two ski professionals about the progress in the plans for Dubai's year-round ski slope to be opened in 2004
If anyone else were to suggest the idea of a world champion skier raised and trained in Dubai, the concept alone would seem preposterous.
But when John Shedden, coaching consultant to the Olympic Association and former technical director of coaching for the National Ski Federation of Britain, suggests that the UAE could field its very own Olympic entrant less than 20 years from now, the idea takes on new gravitas.
Shedden is excited, and has good reason to be. He is part of the nucleus team responsible for the ski slope to be built at Majid Al Futtaim's Souq Al Nakheel in 2004.
The slope is the main focus of the mall's snow world, a world filled with crisp mountain air, the smell of real pine trees, gently falling snowflakes, red-cheeked children laughing over a snowball fights and professional skiers making their way uphill on ski lifts and downhill on either an expertly-graded slope or a slalom run.
The slope is also expected to propel Dubai's global and regional sport, tourism and leisure profile into a whole new dimension.
"Skiing around the world is relatively simple, but taking high-quality snow to Dubai around the year is very significant," said Konrad Bartelski, two-time Olympic skier and silver medallist for the skiing World Cup. "This is going to be the best place in the world to learn to ski."
Bartelski and Shedden have spent months formulating a slope that is tailored to the needs of both ski coaches and skiers, and their months of work have passed their first milestone: The first three-dimensional computer rendering of their plan was ready late last week when Bartelski, Shedden and other nucleus members met in Dubai.
The rendering, which has not been released to the public, offers a glimpse into the logistics and detail of the slope.
The slope itself is built like an upside-down 'L,' and is 400m long from one end to the other with a width range of 20m to 30m. According to the planners, several hundred people will be able to use the slopes simultaneously.
The entire slope will be covered with at least three feet of snow, generated by patented snowmakers that mimic the natural precipitation process to deliver real, high-quality snowflakes to the slope and surrounding chilled areas.
The slope itself also imitates nature, Bartelski said. Other ski slope projects built around the world - in Japan and Germany, for example - are simple and straight hill constructions that offer limited challenge and no real-world simulation.
"There are no mountain ranges in the world that offer straight slopes like that," Bartelski said. "Natural topography is completely different, with twists and turns and gradients and banks, and trees in the middle. Instead of just another slope in a building, we're bringing the Atlas mountains of Morocco to the emirates, trees, landscape and all."
