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Abdul Sadiq, an Afghanistan's only professional
cyclist, began by training his daughter. And when she competed successfully
abroad, he set up the team. It is the world's most unlikely sporting team,
because the sport breaks taboos in a country where in many traditional
communities, women are not allowed out of the house.
The head coach faces frequent threats and
the girls' families do not always approve "If it's not their fathers
trying to stop them, it's a brother or uncle."
Two members of the team, Massouma, 18, and
Zarab, 17, are sisters. Their father and their brothers approve, but they know
that their uncles complain to their father. "They will never come in front
of us to say ‘Why are you cycling?', but they say bad words to our father,"
she said. His team have, however, competed and won regionally against
Bangladesh and Pakistan.
"We want to go cycling because we want
to be heroes one day," said 16-year-old Jella, one of the latest riders.
In one of the mildest and driest winters for many years, training has gone on
without stopping. And next spring, the girls will go up into the mountains. "We
say that women should not sit at home, they need to come out and do
sports," said Abdul Sadiq, And 18- year-old Zainab said she wished that
she could just go cycling alone on the street one day. "It's my ambition,
and I hope that one day girls will be allowed to go cycling on the streets, not
having a coach, or anyone with them, and they will not have problems," she
said.
