CAIRO, Jan. 22 (Xinhua) -- Despite being a country without snowfall during winter, Egypt celebrated the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) World Snow Day to spread the culture of snow sports among its people.
The event is held at Ski Egypt, an indoor ski resort in Giza Governorate near the capital, Cairo, featuring a series of snow activities.
During the event, which kicked off on January 18 and will last for several days, the park will host snow sports events, such as free snow obstacle challenges and free ski and snowboard freestyle night for athletes, as well as family-friendly activities with free snow park access.
In addition, the resort offered snowman building and snow sculpting, sledding, zorbing, team building activities, clown shows, and educational talks and presentations.
"Following our success in the first edition of World Snow Day last year, Ski Egypt decided to make it an annual event and introduce more children and families from Egypt and the region to snow," the event's organizer Magid Abdel-Menim told Xinhua.
He noted that participants, mainly children, enjoyed the opportunity to build their own snowman, engage in different workshops, enjoy snow parties, clown performances, face painting and meet penguins.
According to Abdel-Menim, over the last seven years, Ski Egypt has established itself as one of Africa's most popular family destinations, noting that it recently placed third in the World's Best Indoor Ski Resort category at the prestigious World Ski Awards.
"We partnered with Special Olympics Egypt to offer free ski lessons for people of determination. This aligns with our shared vision with FIS to make skiing and snowboarding the first choice in winter sports and recreational activity by making snow accessible to everyone," he said.
With 7,000 tons of snow spread across the 22,000-square-meter snow park, and a variety of rides, visitors can enjoy unique experiences at the largest indoor snow park in the region.
"I enjoyed the competitions and I won prizes at skiing today ... I came with my friends to enjoy the snow events," Ali Koryaya, a 12-year-old schoolboy, said while he was building a small snowman.
Koryaya said he has participated in last year's World Snow Day, learning skiing for two days, adding that ski jetting is his preferable snow sports.
Tamer Bagato, a former Egyptian footballer, noted that it is a good chance for Egyptians to know more about snow sports since most of them have never seen snow before.
"I will come back again and I hope that awareness about snow and snow sports would spread across Egypt since we have such good parks for skiing and other winter sports," he said. ■