PARIS, 24 August 2003 — Lima Azimi made history in slow motion at the world athletics championships yesterday.
The 22-year-old, who needed instructions to use the starting blocks, set a modest time of 18.37 seconds in her 100 meters heat but proudly became the first woman from Afghanistan to take part in the World Championships.
“It was not important for me to run fast but it was very important to participate,” she said. Running in a plain gray T-shirt with no official emblem and black tracksuit trousers, she was cheered on by an appreciative roar from the Stade de France crowd on a gorgeous morning.
“I had never left my country and I had never ran on a proper track,” said Azimi, one of two athletes from her country entered in the Paris festival. “I had training shoes but they were not suitable and they had to buy me a pair here yesterday,” she added.
But what worried her most was that she had to run with her hair uncovered and wearing short sleeves. “I’m not used to it and I don’t like it because I’m a Muslim,” she told reporters in hesitant but correct English. “This is the first time I’ve been outdoors with nothing on my arms and my hair like that.”
“They took a group of six or seven girls and chose me because I’m a little faster,” she said. “I usually play volleyball but I like athletics as well.”
Her father, who works for the Minister of Agriculture, traveled to France beforehand to check whether it was safe for his daughter to go there. “He told me there would be no problems and allowed me to come,” she said.
