Tuesday March 19th, 2024
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Special Olympics Athletes Use Sand to Train for Snowshoeing Tournaments

The team trained for the snowshoeing tournament in Austria last March despite the fact that all the members of the team had never seen snow.

Staff Writer

If it’s something Egypt has more than enough of, it’s sand. Sand in your shoes. Sand in your hair. Sand in pretty much every place you can imagine. Except we never expected that this surplus of sand could one day be of so much use to us. A group of athletes have taken full advantage of the sand to train for sports that unexpected for Egyptians to train for, to say the least. 

The team, composed of two men and two women, trained for about two months before a snowshoeing tournament last March which took place in Austria. Their training involved wearing snowshoes and running across the Mediterranean coast of Alexandria, according to Reuters. Did the fact that they'd never experienced snow stop them? Nope. The athletes continued to train for the snowshoeing tournament in Austria last March and won a number of medals despite the fact that all the members of the team had never seen snow.

 

The team continues to use the sand to their advantage along the Alexandrian coast in preparation for future tournaments. More specifically, the athletes have commenced training once again to prepare for the 2019 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Abu Dhabi. 

Photos by Mohamed Abd El Ghany