By Peri Sualp………
Skiing is one of the greatest fun sports I have ever known in my entire life! Skiing is great fun especially if you are a snow lover!
Unfortunately skiing is a sport that you can’t do very often, especially if you are living in a 
Mediterranean island with mild weather. But I suppose that some Northern countries like, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland (I wonder why it is called Greenland instead of Whiteland!) or some parts of Canada or Russia can do skiing almost all around the year because they live in a snowy cold place!.
People living in such countries are likely to have more chance to enjoy and experience winter sports rather than us who live in a very hot island and can’t do this sport unless we go to a mountain resort for a holiday! Sadly this makes skiing extra costly and time consuming. But to look on the bright side, cold places like the Northern countries can’t go swimming almost every day like we do in Cyprus! They have to travel to a seaside places in order to enjoy the sun and the water
Certainly there are other places in the world apart from these very cold countries which offer ski resorts. They have snow in the mountainous regions like America, France, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Germany, Turkey, Iran (yes Iran has ski resorts, I found out this year!) and many more. Turkey, being the closest to Cyprus, offers a couple of alternative destinations. I have been to a few but this year I went to Bolu – Kartalkaya which is three hours away from both Ankara and Istanbul, two major cities of Turkey.
Skiing can be really difficult and hard at the beginning but after you do it for a while and get used to it, you will start getting more comfortable with it and manage to take care of yourself without anyone helping you when you are on the go! You will fall down sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that you should give up skiing forever! Because if you don’t fall down at the very beginning, when you are going slow you would never learn how to get back up!
We have to admit that skiing is a dangerous sport! But what sport isn’t? I know a couple of people with broken bones but I guess if you follow the rules and be careful, you can avoid a big percentage of the problems you might face.
Skiing can be tiring and may be painful sometimes, but at the end you will be very happy that you learned to ski! The joy it brings is worth all the danger and pain. If you do not have any physical disability I highly recommend skiing.
PS: Recently I’ve discovered an inspirational person. Kenyan skier Sabrina Simader who is competing in the women’s giant slalom of Alpine skiing in the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
As you know there’s no snow in Kenya, on the contrary it’s extremely hot. When Sabrina’s family moved to Austria, she fell in love with skiing and found a chance to become a very proficient skier. Later she qualified to take part in the Olympics but the Kenyan National Olympic Committee didn’t approve the funding for her.
She was so determined so she turned to crowd funding to raise the necessary money for her to join in the Olympics. She has currently succeeded in raising €11,541 and she listed exactly what she needed in her crowd funding page called “I believe in you” so click here to read more and perhaps make a donation.
She made her dreams come true and I think this is a great achievement for a 19 year old girl from a country where there is no snow. I look forward to watching her getting the medal she deserves after all the effort she has made to go to the Olympics.
