While Australian Paralympic skier Michael Milton trains for the Milan Cortina Paralympic Games in Italy, his family is stranded thousands of miles away in Qatar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey left Doha, were in the air and turned around with the Iranian airspace closures,\u201d Milton told NBC News.<\/p>\n
His family was on a Qatar Airways flight from Doha to Venice, Italy on Saturday when the war began. They had already traveled for more than a full day when their flight abruptly changed course, leaving them stranded at Hamad International Airport in Doha, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hard thing for them \u2014 and for me \u2014 was that they\u2019d already traveled 30 hours from Canberra, Australia to get to Doha,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Milton says the family spent Saturday night in the airport, before evacuating to a hotel on Sunday. \u201cThere\u2019s absolutely nothing I can do to help aside from trying to support them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
There is no clear timeline for when his family will be able to continue their journey. He remains hopeful they will arrive in Italy before the Paralympic Games begin on March 6.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an athlete, I have the ability to be able to worry about the things I can control and their situation is definitely not one of them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As a six-time Paralympian, Milton said this is the second time in his career that the Olympic Truce has been violated. \u201cI was in Sochi in 2014 when Crimea was invaded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n