August 4, 2004

CARRYING THE FLAG

As more teams begin to arrive, we start to find out more about them. Determining who is going to carry the flag is a big part of the job in these days before the Games, and preparations for the Parade of Nations are a huge task. As always, I am very interested in the women that will be competing in the various events. My first Olympics, Atlanta, marked an outstanding show of achievement by American women, especially in team sports such as basketball, softball, and soccer. In Athens, some nations will be sending women for the very first time. Rubab Raza, for example, a swimmer from Pakistan, is only 13-years old. Her family accompanies her daily to her training sessions in order to help her feel more comfortable in a pool filled with male athletes, and she is one of two women that will compete in Athens for Pakistan. Afghan sprinter Rubina Muqimyar will have the honor of carrying her nation's flag in the Opening Ceremony. She has been training at Ghazi Stadium, which was the site of the Taliban's public executions, and she will compete in tracksuit pants, in compliance with religious ideas of decorum. While she likely will not win a medal in her event, the 100m, her appearance is significant. In 1999, of course, the International Olympic Committee suspended the Afghanistan delegation because the Taliban had forbidden women from competing in sports. When the IOC overturned the suspension last summer, IOC president Jacque Rogge asked that Afghanistan choose a female flag bearer to symbolize the change that had taken place. Muqimyar represents why Afghanistan has been able to return to the Olympic movement once again.

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Be sure to check back often for Dr. Amy Bass's updates
to her Online CNR Olympic Diary.