“It was a surreal moment. My heart started beating fast,” Zakia Khudadadi, 25, said of the moment she “threw my helmet and mouthpiece into the air” after winning against Turkey's Ekinci Nurcihan in the women's taekwondo event at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games on Thursday.
Fox News Reported Hudadadi said she was “smuggled” from Afghanistan, where 13 U.S. troops died in the final stages of the 2021 U.S. troop withdrawal, to Paris and then to Tokyo to compete in the Paralympics, which run from Aug. 24 to Sept. 5, 2021. She feared that if the Taliban took control of her home country, restrictions on women would likely prevent her from competing in the sport she loves.
Check it out — President Trump releases video marking the third anniversary of the attack on Afghanistan and the killing of Kamala:
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Originally from Agan, who was born without forearms, she decided not to return to her home country, instead joining the Refugee Paralympic Team. At this year's Paris 2024 Games, the team will be made up of eight athletes and one guide runner, “representing more than 120 million forcibly displaced people around the world,” according to the team's website. explain.
“I was told, 'If I stayed, the Taliban would come and take me away because I was a female athlete who didn't play by their rules. … I had only one choice: to leave,'” she said ahead of the Paris Games. CNN Reported.
The Taliban celebrated three years of their occupation of Afghanistan with a major military victory parade on August 14, but on August 22 announced a new “Vice and Virtue” law that, in line with Sharia law, requires women to cover their entire bodies, including their faces, speak in whispers, and only go outside unless accompanied by a legal male guardian.
Taliban military vehicles are displayed during a military parade marking the third anniversary of the U.S.-led withdrawal from Afghanistan, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan's Parwan province, August 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
The latest restrictions on Afghan women contradict the Taliban leadership's promises of national inclusivity when they took power in 2021. “We will wait until the announcement is made because we will do everything in our power to make sure that everyone is accepted into the country, including those who have opposed us in the past,” top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in the days after Kabul fell.
But Khudadadi and her fellow athletes offer hope for the future of persecuted people. “I have overcome many hardships to get to this point,” she said. “This medal is for all the women in Afghanistan and all the refugees around the world. I hope that one day there will be peace in my country.”
Kudadadi is set to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics.
