Enchanted Soudah: A journey above

Endless opportunities for adventure await in Soudah. Whether you push your limits in cycling, abseiling, paragliding or hikes with endless views, life in the sky is never boring here in this dramatic landscape.

One of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent sporting families greeted me with cups of golden-colored spiced coffee and dates in their village home, nestled amid the terraced slopes of Soudah mountains.

We sat on the floor of a rotunda room laid out with traditional carpets. Lean and youthful in his early sixties, Ali Asiri told me that he has been practicing sports for about 40 years of his life.

“I started very late. Back then sport was not part of our culture. I was the first and only athlete in my community. It wasn’t part of our everyday life,” recalled Ali.

Growing up in Soudah, his family did not have a television at home. “There were no distractions, just a simple village life,” remembered Ali. Outside of school, he spent most of his time working in the wheat fields, tending to the harvests on his family’s land, and helping his father around the farm.

“We went to the valley every day, moving back and forth and covering long distances on foot.” Ali said these walks and the hard work involved in growing crops laid the foundations for his athletic training in early childhood.

“It required both physical endurance and energy,” he said. “But as I grew older, I wanted to give myself a bigger challenge, so I started engaging in other activities and then came to sport.” 

Now a father of nine, he won his first marathon in 1985 and has since been encouraging his children to follow his lead.

“My sons are like my friends, we are equals. One day I won a running contest in the morning, then a football match in the afternoon. And finally, in the evening my son Fawaz was born. I scored three victories that day; my son the biggest one of course!” said Ali with a big smile.

He encouraged his firstborn son, Fawaz, to start training from an early age. Fawaz won his first triathlon medal when he was just nine years old. He later became a professional athlete and competed at the Olympics. Eleven-year-old Fayez, Ali’s youngest son, also trains with his father and brother, and wins his own medals in sports.

The family showed me their ancestral home in the village, where Ali still remembered playing within its mud brick walls when he was five years old. Fayez stood between his brother Fawaz and his father Ali posing for a picture. “If I don’t exercise for even a day or two, I get depressed,” he confessed. “My dream is to become a professional athlete like my father. I run to feel good.”

When I walked into their family home, Ali and Fawaz showed me a room where all four walls were laden with gold medals and trophies from their various athletic achievements, including the running and cycling championships they had won around the globe over the years.

“We’re running out of wall space here, so we set aside another room,” Fawaz told me, as he opened the door to the adjacent room. I noticed that the second room was much larger than the first and some walls already had medals and trophies on them.

Energetic and positive in his late thirties, Fawaz exercises every day using his native village trails as running and cycling tracks. He was recuperating after a recent car accident in which he broke a rib, but still went out to train his father and brother daily.

As the sun set over Soudah’s mountains, I watched Ali and Fayez run the trails along its stunning cliffs, which tower over a picturesque valley. Below, the landscape is dotted with village homes amid the cascading terraces of farmlands. Fawaz whistled energetically and clapped his hands, as his father and brother completed their laps.

A few years ago, Fawaz launched a sports club called “Al Shabab,” which soon became one of five best in the country. He trains professional athletes and some of his trainees are now competing in the national teams of Saudi Arabia.

The next day, I watched Fawaz work with a group of young cyclists, mostly teenagers, all wearing white Al Shabab cycling club jerseys. Keen and skillful on their road bikes, they pedalled along the twisting roads of Soudah, followed by a police car with Fawaz in the front seat, to protect the riders from the traffic. 

“Here in the high peaks, it’s much harder on the lungs due to lack of oxygen, but when they go down to lower altitudes, they are so much stronger. It gives them an advantage,” said Fawaz, who takes his team to high altitude locations in order to build their endurance.

He oversees his trainees’ living conditions, whom they associate with and who their friends are. “It’s important that the environment around them is positive and encouraging,” he said. “I work with a lot of young people who have numerous interests that dilute their focus. It’s important for me to help them concentrate their focus and set clear goals.” 

Underscoring the values of family and community, Fawaz believes that athletic prowess comes first and foremost from the mind, not the body. “To create a successful athlete, the family is the most important pillar of support, followed by awareness of the world around you, and then community. Athletes must have a positive mindset. Their strength starts in the mind, not in muscle,” he said.