DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
Thirty-year-old Farouq Saad Hamad Al-Zuman planted a Saudi flag on the summit of Mt. Everest on Wednesday, becoming the first Saudi to conquer the world’s highest peak, press reports said.
The green Saudi flag was unfurled at 12.30 p.m. Saudi time, local English-language daily Arab Times said.
“Farouq has made all of us proud,” his mother Aasma Al-Yahya told the paper.
“I thank Allah that my son’s purpose and the Saudi nation’s mission have been successfully completed.”
Three members of the 10-person expedition failed to reach the top, with one Japanese climber dying on the way.
Al-Zuman "has now been fondly nicknamed the ‘Sir Edmund Hillary of Saudi Arabia’,” said Al-Zuman’s boss and sponsor, Sultan Al-Bazie, CEO of Attariq Communications.
Al-Zuman, a black belt in Tae Kwondo and professional swimmer, had previously scaled Mt. Rainer in the U.S. state of Washington, Mt. Halealala in Maui, Hawaii, and Mt. Shasta in California.
Around one in 10 climbers die before they reach the top of Mt. Everest, which was first conquered by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and his Nepalese guide Tenzing Norgay in 1953. |
