PARIS: Pakistan’s Faiqa Riaz recorded her personal best in Paris but it wasn’t enough for a berth in the first round of the women’s 100m sprint at the Stade de France on Friday.
Participating in her first international competition after being invited by the International Olympic Committee, Faiqa clocked 12.49 seconds in the second heat of the preliminary round, where she finished sixth.
With the top three in each of the four heats alongside the five next fastest finishers advancing to the first round, Faiqa had little chance of advancing even through two more heats were to follow after her run.
She was eventually 0.47 seconds behind the last qualifier from the preliminary round, Regine Tugade-Watson of Guam, in 24th place out of 35 entrants.
Tugade-Watson finished fourth in Faiqa’s heat. It was won by Thi Nhi Yen Tran in 11.81 seconds, the Vietnamese sprinter edging second-placed Halle Hazzard of Grenada by 0.07 seconds.
The preliminary round also saw Afghanistan’s Kimia Yousofi taking part with a handwritten script on the back of her bib reading “Eduction” and “Our Rights”.
“I think I feel a responsibility for Afghan girls because they can’t talk,” Yousofi said Friday after finishing last in her heat.
Her 13.42-second sprint down the track was not the main point of this trip. Yousofi’s story was a bracing illustration of how these trips to the Olympics aren’t always about winning and losing.
“I’m not a politics person, I just do what I think is true,” Yousofi said. “I can talk with media. I can be the voice of Afghan girls. I [can] tell [people] what they want — they want basic rights, education and sports.”
Marathoner Sharon Firisua of the Solomon Islands finished last in the field among the finishers. After stumbling out of the starting blocks, she trundled across the finish line in 14.31sec — nearly three seconds adrift of heat winner Zahria Allers-Liburd (11.73sec) of Saint Kitts and Nevis.
This was her third trip to the Olympics — and first as a sprinter. She ran the 5,000 metres during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the marathon at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
When Firisua didn’t qualify for Paris, her country’s Olympic officials decided to award her the wild-card spot they had been granted.
Firisua’s nomination drew the wrath of 22-year-old Solomons’ 100m and 200m champion Jovita Arunia who had dreamt of racing in Paris.
“We’re the sprinters. I don’t know what went wrong, it’s unbelievable,” she told ABC before Friday’s heats.
Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2024