The sounds constructed by the
three Afghan athletes going to the London summer Olympics are
fierce: elongated wails bounce off the chipped and dilapidated
walls of the taekwondo centre, while leather smacks and slaps at
the fighting gym.
In a nation wrenched by decades of war, maybe it is no
surprise that all three, a taekwondo masculine twin including Beijing
bronze medallist Rohullah Nikpai, and teenage womanlike fighter Sadaf
Rahimi, followed fighting sports.
They were innate into dispute that still rages, and chronic
insecurity and misery meant they sight in plain spaces with
little financial support, and now solidified cold in the
country’s worst winter for 30 years.
“The difference between me and others is we wish to show
other countries that an Afghan lady can fight,” 17-year-old
Rahimi told Reuters, squinting from a protecting facemask that
pinches her cheeks and black kohl-lined eyes.
Like Nikpai, Rahimi and her family fled to beside Iran
to shun the assault and heartless hardship of the Taliban, who
were defeated just over a decade ago.
The stern Islamist organisation had publicly befuddled women to
death for charges of adultery at the Ghazi stadium, where
Rahimi, her dual sisters and the rest of the country’s initial team
of womanlike boxers, set adult in 2007, use today.
Her robust shoulders rippling as she readies to throw
punches at her coach, Rahimi said she feared the Taliban, who
banned women from education, sports and most work, would regain
a share in energy by early talks with Afghan and U.S.
officials directed at finale the NATO-led war.
“I wish the Taliban don’t come behind and take over,” she
said, wincing and starting to extricate pinkish shoelaces over her
knuckles, used instead of hard-to-get strapping. “But if they
do, we titillate them to let women rivet in sports and go to school”.
Coach Mohammad Saber Sharifi, a former veteran boxer
and disciple of Afghan women’s rights, generally by sport,
said Rahimi had been postulated a furious label to contest at the
Olympics, definition she can avoid serve subordinate rounds.
She will shortly leave Kabul’s rutted and snowbound streets for
London to sight for the Olympics, where women’s fighting is
debuting as a sport, he said.
“NO PROPER ELECTRICITY”
On the other side of Kabul from Ghazi stadium, in an equally
barren use space, 24-year-old Nikpai and associate taekwondo
Olympic contender Nesar Ahmad Bahawi flog and punch in
preparation for foe at London’s ExCel centre in August.
Wearing red chest and behind guards made from the material
used in bullet-proof vests, the pair, who both recently
qualified for the Games in Bangkok, make high-pitched screeches
as they take aim, standard of the sport.
But notwithstanding strictly subordinate and winning Afghanistan’s
first Olympic award at Beijing 4 years ago, Nikpai bemoaned
the miss of support given to foe in his country.
“Nesar and we don’t have a good place to train, facilities,
or even a unchanging ride complement and correct electricity,” he
said, his exhale bubbling in the wintry atmosphere of the centre, whose
small heater did little to fight the solidified white landscape
outside.
Poor conditions are not singular to taekwondo, whose national
team members accept a parsimonious monthly contribution of between
$10-$14. Boxing manager Sharifi, whose group have never lerned in
a ring, said tiny sporting budgets exceedingly extent their success.
“We can’t unequivocally review ourselves to the world,” said
Nikpai, who was lured to taekwondo after examination hours of
action films as a interloper in Iran. He returned to Kabul in 2004.
Nikpai perceived a hero’s acquire on his lapse from
Beijing and was summoned to accommodate Afghan President Hamid Karzai,
who presented him with a brand new flat, income and a car.
The conduct of the Afghan Olympic Committee, General Mohammad
Zahir Akhbar, said he hopes some-more athletes in wrestling, judo and
athletics will validate for the Games in London.
“We are war-torn, our athletes face mercantile and security
problems, but we are aiming for medals,” Akhbar told Reuters.
First-time Olympian Bahawi, who took adult taekwondo at the
behest of his family because he kept kicking his friends, said
triumph at general competitions could be a approach to lift
security at home.
“Sport brings a summary of assent and fortitude in the
country,” said the high 25-year-old from the country’s eastern
Kapisa range before knocking prosaic a group partner with dual quick
kicks on his side.
Afghan manager Bashir Taraki, who trains them alongside
Korea’s Min Sin-hak, downplayed the captivate to the fighting
aspect of the Korean martial art, saying: “I think they are more
into taekwondo’s fortify than its fighting side”.
