Srinagar: With the aim to develop the SnowShoe sports in State, Snowshoe Federation of India (SSFI) organized its first training session of Snowshoes for the athletes of Kashmir at of Gulmarg on Sunday.
It was first major snow sport activity held at the winter sports resort of Gulmarg this year and Federation is planning to organize many more in upcoming months.
“It is first such training event of the year that we held and in coming months we plan to hold major events at the resort,” said SSFI President Mir Mudassar said.
“The plan is simple; introduce as many Kashmiri athletes to the sport as we can. Despite limited availability of equipment we will try to make maximum of athletes familiar with the sport this season,” he said.
He said that SSFI will be fielding its team in upcoming World SnowShoe championship at Saranac lake, USA and it will be second time that Indian contingent will be taking part in World snowshoe event.
“World SnowShoe championship is scheduled to be held at Saranac Lake USA in February. We will be fielding our Strong team in the event. Last year we fielded two athletes Umer Nabi and Tanveer Hussain in world championship held in Italy,” he said.
About promotion of SnowShoe game in India, he said, “We are in touch with Tourism department in Kashmir as well as J&K state Sports Council. Snowshoe is simple activity of running using snowshoes. First part is to get equipment and then organize big events. Tourism department is expected to float tenders for the purpose and we may see more equipment in state soon”.
In the training session some of the well known athletes of the valley participated included Tanveer Hussain, Muzaffer Ahmad and Gulzar Khan.
“I am running on snowshoes first time and it looks far tougher than normal running activity. While Tanveer is familiar with the sport we are getting firsthand experience today. Before this we had only seen snowshoes in pictures and videos,” Gulzar said.