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IMAGE: Afghanistan’s Olympic flag-bearer Kimia Yousofi. {Photograph}: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Australia has relocated Afghanistan’s Olympic flag-bearer Kimia Yousofi and different athletes and their relations fleeing Taliban rule, officers mentioned on Wednesday.
The Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) mentioned 5 Afghan households with “ties to the Olympic motion” had arrived in Australia in current months following a 12-month mission to carry them to security.
They included twin Olympian and observe sprinter Yousofi, who carried Afghanistan’s flag ultimately 12 months’s Tokyo Olympics and taekwondo Asian Video games medallist Ahmad Abasy, the AOC mentioned.
In all, 31 relations had arrived in Australia – the primary in early June and the newest final week.
“For the households concerned, the stress and uncertainty over this time has been huge,” AOC Chief Govt Matt Carroll mentioned in a press release.
“Many have frolicked in areas exterior Afghanistan and it is fantastic to now have them on Australian soil. All arrived completely satisfied, if exhausted.”
The AOC liaised with the Australian authorities to safe visas and flights for the Afghan arrivals whereas the Worldwide Olympic Committee supplied monetary assist throughout their time in interim areas.
Yousofi thanked the Australian authorities and the AOC, and mentioned she hoped to compete at subsequent 12 months’s Olympics in Paris.
“It has been a journey for me however I’m very completely satisfied to be right here,” she mentioned. I’m basically beginning a brand new life right here,” she added in a press release.
Australia evacuated greater than 70 Afghan athletes, relations and officers a 12 months in the past because the Taliban swept to energy.
Women and girls’s sport has since been crushed by the Taliban authorities’s hardline insurance policies.
Males have continued to play sport at neighborhood and elite stage within the nation however ladies are successfully confined to their houses by a combination of regulation and intimidation.
Abasy mentioned within the assertion that sport was the “pure proper” of each human being.
“Sadly, now in Afghanistan, sports activities have a gender perspective and ladies are denied the best to sports activities,” he added.
“It is a nice loss for the game of Afghanistan and the world.”
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