Six athletes, a team of three women and three men, will participate at the 2024 Paris Olympics representing Afghanistan. The International Olympic Committee has said the gender-balanced team will make a point about equality for the whole world to see, including those in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where women’s rights have been severely eroded since the group’s 2021 return to power
Two of the women on the national team are sisters whose prowess as cyclists granted them an escape from their country when the Taliban came back, and now they’re determined to use the Olympic spotlight to give their fellow Afghan women and girls hope.
Humble, hidden beginnings
Fariba and Yulduz Hashimi started riding bikes six years ago, but they had to do it clandestinely on the unpaved, bumpy roads in their home province of Faryab. It’s one of Afghanistan’s most conservative regions, and their community would not accept the idea of girls riding bikes.
The sisters faced opposition even from their own family, whom they say were just worried about their safety in the fiercely male-dominated society.
“People welcomed us on the streets by throwing stones and insulting us, because we appeared in public without a scarf, in short clothes and a helmet,” Fariba told CBS News.