The build-up to the London Olympics is already well under way. One of the biggest excitements for me will bet watching women compete in the amateur boxing section. Hard to believe they justified keeping women out of that for so long, but everything comes to those who wait.
One gym preparing for this is in Kabul, Afghanistan. A group of women who started training under an NGO-sponsored programme in 2007, just having fun and learning to get fit, are now the official Afghan Women's Boxing team. Rahmi pictured above and a team-mate will compete in the AIBA qualifiers on September 6th. There have been quite a few stories about them in the press lately, no doubt because seeing women boxing makes a better story than looking at other ways in which some Afghan women are still struggling to find their path. One BBC journalist described the gym as a visible sign of the progress he had been hoping to find, while one of the boxers said in an Irish Times interview : "Girls in Afghanistan shouldn’t be afraid of anything. Our country needs them."
Looking forward to meeting more boxers as the Olympics draw closer, like Mary Kom.
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| Sadaf Rahimi, Afghan Women's Boxing Team pic Majid Saeedi |
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