Imagine training for years to reach the pinnacle of competitive sports, only to have your own country refuse to acknowledge your efforts — your existence, even.
That’s exactly what Kimia Yousofi, Fariba Hashimi and Yulduz Hashimi are finding out, as the only female athletes representing Afghanistan at the Paris Games.
Earlier this month, the spokesman of the Taliban government’s sports directorate announced that “only three athletes are representing Afghanistan,” specifying the male competitors.
“Currently, in Afghanistan, girls’ sports have been stopped,” he said. “When girls’ sport isn’t practised, how can they go on the national team?”
The president of the Afghanistan Olympic Committee however acknowledged the women, saying in a statement:
“We are delighted having three female athletes for the first time in an Olympic Games,” Yonus Popalzay said. His committee operates outside of Afghanistan to support athletes.
Despite being ignored by the internationally unrecognised leaders of her country, Yuldoz and her sister Fariba have every intention of competing under the “Afghanistan tricolour flag” for “the people, and women of Afghanistan”.
The sisters will be competing in the road race event at the Paris Games as Afghanistan’s first ever representatives for cycling in the Olympics — but the feat is not being celebrated nor recognised by their own country back home.
Since their violent takeover in August 2021, the Taliban have enforced a number of measures that have prohibited women and girls from participating in everyday life, including going to school, participating in sports, attending universities and travelling alone.
The sisters Yulduz and Fariba insist they are not participating at the Paris Games “as a representative of any group or the Taliban.”
Yulduz said that by participating in the Paris games, she will “show the power of Afghan women to the world.”
The 24-year old spoke to The Irish Times, describing the Games as the “only happiness” for women in Afghanistan.
“I hope to play good games, shine the tricolour flag of Afghanistan, and bring happiness to women who are prohibited from education and work,” she said.
Yulduz and her sister Fariba, 21, began cycling as teenagers, learning on a neighbour’s bike and secretly entering themselves into competitions wearing sunglasses and baggy clothing to mask their identities.
“People tried to hit us with their cars or rickshaws,” Fariba reflected. “They threw stones at us.”
Three years after their first bike ride, the pair were invited to race in a national competition.
Fazli Ahmad Fazli, Afghan Cycling Federation president, said the sisters are “amazing riders [who] will soon win in big races for Afghanistan.”
Two years later, after gaining the attention of the Afghan National Cycling team, they raced in the UCI world Gravel Championships in Vicenza, Italy, where Fariba finished 33rd and Yulduz finished 39th.
That same year, Fariba won the 2022 Women’s Road Championships of Afghanistan, which was held in Switzerland. Yulduz placed second.
During their career as sportswomen, the pair have faced harassment and threats. “Our relatives used to express disapproval and shame, attempting to stop us from cycling,” Yulduz said.
When the Taliban seized power in 2021, the sisters fled to Italy, securing seats on an Italian government-organised flight which also transported three fellow Afghan cyclists: Nooria Mohammadi, Zahra Rezayee, and Arezo Sarwari. The cyclists have since been based in Italy, and haven’t been able to return home.
Yulduz hopes that young girls in Afghanistan will watch their sporting pursuits and remember to “Never be disappointed.”
“I know not having freedom, not having access to education, is a great pain,” she said.
“You should think that we two sisters are going through many difficulties, and now it will bring happiness to the people and women of Afghanistan.”
The finals of the women’s cycling road race event at the Paris Olympics will take place on August 4.
The third female athlete to compete for Afghanistan at the Paris Games is sprinter Kimia Yousofi. The 28-year old competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and was Afghanistan’s flag bearer at the opening ceremony.
When the Taliban took control in 2021, Yousofi escaped to Australia, where she has been based since. Her coach, John Quinn, said Yousofi will be “running for women from Afghanistan” at the Paris Games.
“She is showing what’s possible,” Quinn said. “[These] Games…where she’s not really running for herself.”
“She provides, for them, hope. And she shows what optimism looks like.”
Quinn reflected on the immense achievements Yousofi has accomplished in the past two years.
“When you consider everything else she has had to juggle — training, a new language, getting her family here, all those things..she has been amazing.”
Yousofi was selected for the women’s 100-meter sprint — a feat she does not take lightly.
“It’s an honour to represent the girls of my homeland once again,” she said in a statement released by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) earlier this month.
“Girls and women who have been deprived of basic rights, including education, which is the most important one.”
“I represent the stolen dreams and aspirations of these women. Those who don’t have the authority to make decisions as free human beings — they don’t even have the permission to enter a park.”
She added that she is “deeply grateful to all those who have stood by me on this journey and made this possible … who helped us for every step, for coming to Australia and joining together and chasing our dreams and making a new life.”
AOC chief executive Matt Carroll said her story is “one of inspiration for women and girls in Afghanistan, and anywhere in the world, who are denied basic rights, including the right to freely practice sport.”
Meanwhile, another female athlete from Afghanistan has been speaking out about the Taliban’s treatment of its female sportspeople.
Friba Rezayee, a Hazara judoka who made history as one of Afghanistan’s first two female Olympians, recently wrote an essay for the New York Times, arguing that she and her fellow sportspeople shouldn’t be representing a country whose regime is so ardently against women.
Rezayee, the founder and executive director of Women Leaders of Tomorrow, a Vancouver-based nonprofit helping Afghan women and girls through education and sports, said she was surprised by the “sports world’s lack of support for the brave women and girls who, unlike me, have not been able to flee the country.”
Rezayee argued for the I.O.C to “let the athletes — most of whom live in exile — compete on the Refugee Olympic Team, which would send a message of hope to refugees around the world.”
“By allowing them to compete for Afghanistan, the I.O.C. is not only undermining its own commitment to Olympic values but also lending legitimacy to the Taliban’s unrecognised regime,” she said.
Rezayee, 38, recently revealed that she frequently receives threats for her activism.
“I believe that my principles and the principles of human rights, women’s rights and women’s dignity are stronger than men with guns,” she said.