CANADA/FILE: WINTER OLYMPICS VANCOUVER 2010 - Moroccan skier brings Olympic spirit to urban children

Record ID: 872647

  • Title: CANADA/FILE: WINTER OLYMPICS VANCOUVER 2010 - Moroccan skier brings Olympic spirit to urban children
  • Date: 15th February 2010
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF AZZIMANI COACHING CHILDREN WHILE THEY ARE SKIING (SOUNDBITE) (French) VINCENT MUSSOT FROM WOIPPY, FRANCE, SAYING: "I've never skied before but it seems like it's very fun and a happy thing to do." (SOUNDBITE) (French) HAFEDA BOUHOUCH, FROM WOIPPY, FRANCE, SAYING: "Just the fact that he wants to teach us how to ski is already something that's great and I'm just learning how to ski." VARIOUS OF AZZIMANI TEACHING CHILDREN TO SKI BOY FALLING IN SNOW
  • Embargoed: 2nd March 2010 12:00
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  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA9NFEZQ1NIB93NE099WLAJO5ZS
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  • Story Text: As the only athlete representing Morocco in Canada, the France-born Alpine skier Samir Azzimani has come to the Olympics with eight secondary school children from Woippy, a depressed suburb of eastern French town Metz that made headlines for riots last month.
    Azzimani, who will compete in the giant slalom, said he grew up in a rough area of Colombes, outside Paris and simply wanted to share his dream with youngsters from a similar background.
    "To discover something other than soccer. To discover something other than problems. To dream, to realize something like you know that's not impossible if you want," the 32-year-old said.
    Hardly anybody in France knew where Woippy was until youths torched cars and clashed with police there in January after a young man died while trying to flee police on a scooter.
    Living there is tough but there is hope, as Azzimani can testify with his own story.
    It was a school trip when he was six that introduced the young Samir to Alpine skiing, an expensive sport not everyone can afford.
    He was so good at it that he soon become a competitor and a ski instructor, ironically in the posh French Alps resort of Courchevel, where Russian millionaires are a more common sight than suburban children.
    Not everybody can come to the Olympics. To be eligible, skiers must win a certain number of points from second-tier races, often set in exotic locations such as China, New Zealand or Iran, where Azzimani managed to qualify for the slalom last month.
    It was a tough road to get to the olympics said the Moroccan skier, comparing his journey to the distance between the earth and the moon.
    Azzimani's Olympic dream is nothing new, but threatened never to come true after he failed to qualify for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City and was ruled out of the Turin Games four years later with a shoulder injury.
    Now he has made it and knows a podium is outside his reach, which does not mean he has no ambition.
    His goal now is to beat the competitors from Ghana and Senegal, because if he can beat them, he said he'll be the champion of Africa.
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