As their country's security continues to deteriorate, two men from a persecuted Afghan minority are on track to become the war-torn nation's first winter Olympians.

Sajjad Husaini is a ball of nervous energy after a morning spent practicing slalom turns in the picturesque Swiss Alps.

This weekend, the 24-year-old year old from Bamiyan in central Afghanistan will take a major step towards his Olympic dream — competing in his first international ski federation race.

"It's the first real race, it's giant slalom but we are ready for this race," he says.

"We train for the Olympic games, and now we try to qualify for the world championships."

Sajjad Husaini and Ali Shah are aiming to represent Afghanistan at the next Winter Olympics. ( Supplied: Sajjad Husaini )

Sajjad and compatriot Ali Shah will use the experience and ranking points to gain eligibility.

'Cool' comparisons abound

The seemingly unlikely aspiration does have a precedent.

Feel-good comedy film Cool Runnings immortalised the Jamaican bobsled team's path to their 1988 Winter Olympic debut in Calgary, Canada.

Sajjad has heard the comparison before, and has a thoughtful reply on the vastly different obstacles

"[The Jamaicans] come from a warm country, we come from a war country," he quips.

The man responsible for setting them on the Olympic path agrees.

"The difference is Afghanistan could actually be a ski nation, it's just, the war for the last 30 years," says Christoph Zeurcher, a Swiss ski fanatic and journalist who found himself in Bamyan a few years back covering the war.

Swiss ski fanatic and coach Christoph Zeurcher (left) in Afghanistan. ( Supplied: Sajjad Husaini )

"I was stranded there for a couple of days, in 2010 I think, and I was just looking at these mountains and decided to bring some skis and we started the ski school."

Sajjad and Ali Shah were among his first and most promising protégés.

"Its amazing how far the whole thing has progressed over the last four years," he jokes.

"Four years ago they were hardly able to come down a really easy slope!"

Survival instinct may help explain it.

Sajjad Husaini and Ali Shah are members of the Hazara ethnic minority — persecuted within Afghanistan for their Asiatic appearance and adherence to Shiite Muslim beliefs, reviled by the Sunni Taliban and other extremists.

"In Bamiyan we live in different way, we try to be in the peace, without war," Sajjad says.

His family fled to neighbouring Iran during the Afghan civil war and Taliban occupation.

Since the Taliban's ouster however, Bamiyan province in central Afghanistan has been relatively safe.

But surrounding the mountainous region is an ever bleaker security picture, according to the latest American military oversight report released this week.

Of the struggling nation's many problems, "the questionable capabilities of the Afghan security forces and pervasive corruption are the most critical", wrote John Sopko, America's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The Taliban gained ground and menaced several provincial capitals in 2016.

2017 is already off to a bloody start, with bombings in Kabul and Kandahar claiming dozens of lives.

As he prepares to do battle of a very different kind, Sajjad Husaini says he's all too aware of that reality, the popular perception of his country in the west.

"I'm proud, to represent Afghanistan, like without war, or explosion," he says.

"It's something different."