The world’s fastest women flew down the Olympic straight in the 100m heats on the first morning of athletics at the Stade de France, but one carried a heavier burden. Kimia Yousofi, part of the six-person Afghan team competing in Paris, trailed the rest of the pack and finished two seconds behind the winner.
Afterwards, she held up words scribbled on an A4 piece of paper. “Education” written in black. “Sport” underneath it in green. In red, the third colour of the Afghanistan flag, “our rights”. “I have a message for Afghan girls,” she said. “Don’t give up, don’t let others decide for you. Just search for opportunity, and then use that opportunity,” she said.
The 28-year-old carried the country’s flag at the Tokyo Games, but fled to Iran when the Taliban took control in 2021. Her team in Paris is made up of three men and three women, selected by the Afghanistan Olympic Committee which operates outside the country. “I just want to represent Afghan people with this flag, our culture. Our girls in Afghanistan, our women, they want basic rights, education and sport,” she said.
Amnesty International has described the Taliban’s restrictions on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan as “draconian”. Public stoning for adultery was reintroduced in March. Yousofi said women are not considered human. “To be able to decide for their life, that has been taken away from them for the last two years. We are fighting for that.”
Of the six Afghan athletes in Paris, the Taliban recognises only the men. “Only three athletes are representing Afghanistan,” Atal Mashwani, the spokesperson of the Taliban government’s sports directorate, said last month, referring to the male competitors. Despite the potential for tension within the team, Yousofi said her male teammates support her. “The condition for many in Afghanistan also is terrible,” she said. “The problem for men is a little bit less, but they have problem as well for everything.”
When the Taliban came to power, the international sporting community worked to secure safe passage for athletes that may have been threatened by the new regime. Yousofi said she initially wanted to stay in Kabul but was advised she would not be safe. “I was just searching around for 10 days after I left Afghanistan. I was searching what should I do? What can I do?”
The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) and successive governments worked together to secure a visa for her and her family in Australia, where they moved in 2022. The AOC chief executive, Matt Carroll, said her visa in Iran was only temporary, and a potential return to Afghanistan would have been extremely dangerous. “I’ll have to admit, I’ve never worked in this space before – getting people evacuated from countries,” the sports administrator said.
The Paris Games have espoused gender equality, promoting that half the athletes competing are women. Still coughing after the race from a combination of exertion and a dairy allergy, Yousofi was asked what she thought of that message. She said “in my mind I already have equal gender” and it was something on which others must reflect.
“Those people who don’t have this message, they think they can decide this for everyone. No, they can’t decide this for everyone,” she said. “This message is for them.”
