HANGZHOU – The Afghanistan women’s volleyball team have lamented training conditions at the Asian Games and are concerned they will not be ready for an event where they are participating in defiance of the country’s Taliban rulers.
Khushal Malakzai, who runs the nation’s volleyball programme, said the team had not been able to practise on a court since arriving in Hangzhou last Thursday and were confined to doing fitness work in the gym.
“We still haven’t been able to train,” he told Reuters on Sunday.
“We need to have them training with the ball. I don’t know why they can’t have training for an hour or two when they have all these facilities.
“If they’re not training on court, then it’s like starting from zero.”
Malakzai said they had been allocated one training session two days before the women’s competition starts on Saturday.
Teams at major multi-sport events are usually able to train in regulation facilities multiple times before their event, and often practise daily.
Hangzhou Games organisers and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Women’s sport in Afghanistan has been crushed since the Taliban took over from a Western-backed government in August 2021, causing many female athletes to flee the country for fear of persecution.
With the backing of the OCA and the International Olympic Committee, Afghanistan's exiled national Olympic committee has sent 17 women to compete in athletics, cycling and volleyball in Hangzhou.
The delegation marched at the opening ceremony behind the country’s former tri-colour flag which is used by international resistance movements and shunned by the Taliban.
There were two separate groups of Afghan athletes who arrived in Hangzhou. From inside the country, there was a 130-strong team of all-male athletes who will take part in 17 sports, including volleyball, judo and wrestling,
Then there is a diaspora of Afghan athletes from beyond its borders, including 17 women, said Hafizullah Wali Rahimi, the president of Afghanistan’s national Olympic committee from before the Taliban took over.
The women include the volleyball team, who had been preparing in Iran, a track and field athlete from Australia and cyclists from Italy.
Rahimi, who now works from outside Afghanistan, told AP: “We want to be keeping the sports completely out of the politics so the athletes can freely, inside and outside their country, do their sports activity and development.”
On women athletes within the country, he added: “We hope it comes back, of course. Not only the sport, we hope that they’ll be allowed back to schools and education, because that’s the basic rights of a human.” REUTERS
