Emirati woman makes strides as skydiver

DUBAI // Shaikha Ahmed has been through a tough 12 months, battling for the right to represent her country as a formation skydiver.

Just a year ago, the 19-year-old Emirati student was not allowed to drive herself to the Skydive Dubai facility to train. Now, she is travelling the world representing the UAE, the only female Emirati team member.

She has beaten obstacles thrown up by social and cultural mores, her family’s fears and a schedule as a full-time nutrition student at the University of Sharjah.

But she is no ordinary teenager.

Ms Ahmed has been joined by women of other nationalities, including American and Egyptian. Her compatriots who tried to make the team failed to cope with the fear, or were defeated by the pressure of family.

“I like to do something unique, something different to what everyone else is doing,” Ms Ahmed said.

She became hooked on skydiving after her first tandem jump in December 2011 and has since made about 1,200 jumps, leaping out of a plane about 24 times each weekend.

“It’s been a really hard challenge to be able to do this,” she said. “The culture, the atmosphere surrounding me. It’s hard to convince people this is a safe sport, that this is my dream.

“In the beginning, my family were really scared but after they saw how safe I was and committed to this, they have been very supportive.”

She has travelled to various countries and competed last year at the International Parachuting Championships in Dubai. This year’s championships begin on Wednesday at Skydive Dubai’s Marina location.

“Seeing me compete and seeing my passion has helped make my family support me. They think I’m brave and they see me differently now, so differently even to a year ago,” she said.

“You feel so much stronger every day and this sport gives me more passion and I want to give more to the team and make the UAE proud of us.”

While the pressure is on to do well in front of the home crowd, each competition is a lesson.

“Seeing the teams around us gives us the feeling that we need to train harder and it spurs us on to do better,” Ms Ahmed said.

Her coach, Alena Chistova, who is also on the women’s formation team, said it is a tough challenge to attract Emirati women – and women in general – to the sport.

“Many get scared after the first jump and don’t ever come back while for others, their parents just won’t let them,” Ms Chistova said.

“These girls are breaking rules every day. In the beginning, it was weird for these girls to even sit in the plane with men. They couldn’t do the stretching in the morning with everyone and even the high five before they jump – something that’s just a tradition – they couldn’t do as nobody was allowed to touch the girls. This sport is mostly men.”

But these girls are special, she said.

“They’re tough personalities. They were special before they were skydiving. You have to have so much passion and commitment to continue training. These girls are doing something very unusual for this society,” Ms Chistova said.

An Egyptian, Nada Attia, 19, is also on the UAE team. Her battle has been similar to Ms Ahmed’s. She attends school full-time, studying engineering at the University of Sharjah. It took some time for her to gain the support of her family.

She is doing a solo freestyle event as well as being part of the four-woman formation team, the first year the UAE has had a female entry in the freestyle category.

“As an Arab girl, everything is always hard, but being the first, is even harder,” she said. “It’s hard to convince everyone to support you but when they see the passion and how good you’re becoming, they change.”

mswan@thenational.ae