March 18, 2008	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 9, 1429

KABUL, March 17: The neighborhood boys shout at Mehboba Ahdyar when she leaves home. “Hero, hero! Look at the hero of our country,” they yell at Ahdyar, one of Afghanistan’s fastest female runners.

But the boys are not saluting a top athlete. Their sarcastic jabs are meant to poke fun at a teenage girl trying to realize Olympic-sized dreams.

Ahdyar, a 19-year-old middle-distance runner, is the only female on Afghanistan’s four-member Olympic team. “I feel bad about all these things that happen to me every day, but I’ll still march forward,” Ahdyar told the Associated Press on Wednesday. “I never show weakness. I’ll fight through these challenges.”

Afghanistan, which has never won an Olympic medal, was banned from the 2000 Games in Sydney because the Taliban regime outlawed women from taking part in sports. The country participated in the Atlanta Games in 1996, before the Taliban came to power, and the Athens Games in 2004.

Ahdyar faces an uphill battle for Olympic success. Practice facilities are Spartan at best in Afghanistan, which is still fighting its way through a violent Taliban insurgency six years after the hard-line regime’s ouster.

Although women’s rights have improved dramatically since 2001, women here are still second-class citizens. Most wear the all-covering burqa in public and would need male family members’ permission before tackling anything as ambitious as trying to become an Olympic athlete.

“We are scared, really scared about the security situation in our country, and of the people who have negative views about my family,” said her mother, Moha Jan. But she added: “These problems cannot stop us from supporting our daughter.”

She and Afghan sprinter Masoud Azizi will soon travel to Malaysia for five months to train before the Beijing Games in August.

Her times are not exactly world-class. Ahdyar runs 1,500 metres in about four minutes and 50 seconds, a full minute slower than the Olympic record. Her 800 metre times are not much stronger, but Afghan officials say they do not expect the country’s athletes to win any medals.

“The presence of Afghan athletes is more important for us than bringing home medals,” said Mohmood Zia Dashti, the Afghan National Olympic committee’s vice president.

Still, the country’s athletes might even be inspiring Ahdyar’s name-calling neighborhood boys to give sports a second look. After Ahdyar won US$1,000 (euro642) by coming in first place at a track event held in Afghanistan, Ahdyar said she overheard some of her neighborhood detractors wonder aloud if they shouldn’t lace up their running shoes.

“Look at that girl, she won (US$1,000) from running,” Ahdyar recalled a boy saying. “Why are we sitting here doing nothing? Let’s start running.”—AP