For Afghan women with Olympic dreams, a long, hard road to the Games:
A member of the Afghanistan women's national boxing team attends a training session in May 2010 in Kabul.
Athletes who buck tradition can face attacks from extremists. Many Afghans fear that if the extremists manage to return to power after nearly two decades years of war, women could disappear from public life, the Post reports. At the Olympic facility where athletes now train, there is a soccer field where the Taliban used to perform public executions, including women accused of adultery.
For Gholami, her success may stem in part from the fact that she was not raised in Afghanistan. Her family is from Mazar-e Sharif, in the north of the country, but she grew up in Iran as a refugee. She sees living abroad as an advantage, as women in Iran often exercise in public. She joined a taekwondo club there, then got recruited to Afghanistan’s national team. She still lives in Iran, but travels to Kabul for practice.
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