A two-day running competition in Kabul ended on Sunday that included eighty females aged 17-21 from Herat, Kandahar, Balkh, Daikundi, and Kabul provinces. The young women competed in several distance categories, ranging from 100 meters to 3 kilometers.
Ahmad Firooz Sakhizadeh, the coach of the national athletics team, stated: “Our competitions are used to select top athletes for the national team, and we have held six distance categories.”
The young women who participated in the event expressed their happiness over the competition, which came after a three-year break.
Nazia Yari, one of the competitors in the event, said she has nine victories in the 100-meter category that were held inside the country.
She ranked sixth among participants from 206 countries at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Argentina.
“The level of competition is high. Foreign athletes are quarantined a month before their competition gets started, but we are not like this. We only got two weeks to prepare for this competition,” said Nazi Yari, a member of the national team.
“Last year we could not hold the competition due to the coronavirus pandemic, the year before that we also could not hold the athletic competition due to security problems. If we hold these competitions once a year, girls will grow," said Mahdiyeh Hosseini, a member of the female national team.
The female competitors hope that the obstacles in the way of female sports will be overcome soon.
“I asked the general directorate of physical education & sports to provide more opportunities for Afghan girls and pave the way for them so that they can attend international events,” said Shakila Hosseini, a member of Afghanistan's national team, adding: “If we attend international events, we can bring medals to our country.”
"There is no attention paid to sports in this province. Not only in Daikundi but in all of Afghanistan, there is not much attention paid to the sports sector--neither from the government nor any other organization," said Rahima, a member of Daikundi’s team.
Sports officials have announced that the male running competition would be held in Kabul in the near future.