Beijing 2022 | Alpine skier Mohammad Arif Khan qualifies for Winter Olympics
Alpine skier Mohammad Arif Khan has become the first from the country to qualify for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in the slalom event. The 30-year-old Arif hails from Jammu and Kashmir, and mainly takes part in the slalom events, but has also competed in the giant slalom events.
The event alpine skiing consists of five events -- downhill, super G, slalom, giant slalom and combined. Slalom is the shortest event of the lot, that requires an athlete to perform fast turns and change directions smoothly. Each participant gets two rounds and the ranking is established by adding the times of the two runs.
For a qualification to the Olympics, the average of five best results in the events between July 1, 2019 to January 16, 2022 will be considered.
Meanwhile, Arif had finished ninth, 10th and twice finished 11th in events held at Ski Dubai, Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. Interestingly, the events held in Dubai were the only competitions Arif took part in, during the qualification period.
In the last edition of the Winter Games in South Korea, only two Indians had qualified -- Jagdish Singh and Shiva Keshavan.
The 2022 edition will be held from February 4 to 20, and Arif's event will be held on February 16.