Afghan Athlete Vows 'Never' to Compete Under Taliban Flag
A female taekwondo competitor evacuated from Afghanistan in November is now training with the French team for the 2024 Paris Olympics. She says her dream was to compete for Afghanistan but not under Taliban rule.
By Jalal Mirzad | VOA News
Twenty-year-old Marzia Hamidi is one of many Afghans who fled the Taliban last year. She has been living in Paris since December where she has joined the Refugee Olympic Team for the 2024 Paris Games, an initiative launched by the International Olympic Committee in response to the global refugee crisis. Separately, the French national taekwondo team has allowed Hamidi to train with them.
“I train every day, two times or three times to go to competitions in future,” said Marzia Hamidi. “I want to make Afghanistan proud.”
Born to an Afghan refugee family in Iran, Hamidi started taekwondo at the age of 15. In 2019, she returned to Afghanistan and joined the Afghan national team.
She earned several gold medals in the under 57-kilogram category in regional tournaments.
Hamidi’s dream was to continue representing Afghanistan in international competitions, but she is not willing to do so for the Taliban.
“Never for [the] Taliban,” said Hamidi. “I [will] never raise the flag of the Taliban in competition. I don’t know if I can ever again raise the flag of Afghanistan. Sometimes it makes me sad because it was my dream to in competition raise the flag of Afghanistan and let the world see that Afghan women can do anything they want.”
Hamidi is opposed to the idea of the international community recognizing the Taliban.
And she says she will never return to Afghanistan as long as the Taliban are in power.
“I will never accept the Taliban because they are, for me, a group of terrorists, and they killed a lot of women in the name of jihad in 20 years,” said Hamidi.
Hamidi is determined to continue with her passion.
For now, that means participating in the games as part of the Refugee Olympic Team.
“I [will] never raise the flag of the Taliban in competition. I don't know if I can ever again raise the flag of Afghanistan. Sometimes it makes me sad because it was my dream to in competition raise the flag of Afghanistan and let the world see that Afghan women can do anything they want.”