Youngest IOC member, Afghan Samira Asghari, reappears on the Olympic stage at Beijing 2022

After participating in Tokyo 2020 and with the Taliban returning to power, there were concerns about Asghari. The IOC continues to monitor the situation of the Afghan sports community before announcing new dialogue.

Afghan athlete Samira Asghari, the youngest member of the International Olympic Committee, reappeared on the international stage after some uncertainty about her whereabouts after Tokyo 2020, although she was known from social media.

Around The Rings was able to confirm Asghari’s presence among those attending the first part of the 139th IOC Session in Beijing on the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics.

Asghari, who will turn 28 in March, is a member of four IOC commissions: the Athletes Care Commission, Games Coordination for the XXXIV Olympiad in Los Angeles, Coordination for the Fourth Gangwon 2024 Youth Olympic Winter Games in South Korea and the Future Venues for Winter Olympic Games.

She had last been seen in late August in Tokyo after attending the Summer Olympics where she participated in the 138th IOC Session and awards activities. By the middle of that month the Taliban had seized Kabul and returned to power in Afghanistan, and it was unclear whether she had returned to her home country from the Japanese capital.

Within days of leaving Japan, Asghari posted on her social media channels a plea to the United States for help in evacuating top athletes and technical staff from Afghanistan before it was “too late”. Some time later, it was confirmed that the young former captain of the Afghan basketball team was in Europe.

Asghari had served in various roles in the Afghan sports administration and became her country’s first IOC member in 2018.

From her current residence, she was privy to the IOC-driven humanitarian operation in recent months whereby hundreds of athletes and sports officials, including many women who feared they would be barred from competing and suffer reprisals, left Afghanistan.

Top Olympic leaders also emigrated, including the president of the National Olympic Committee, Hafizullah Wali Rahimi, and its secretary general, Mohammad Yonus Popalzay. Last October Popalzay reappeared at the General Assembly of National Olympic Committees in Crete, Greece.

At that meeting, IOC President Thomas Bach asked the NOCs to collaborate in the evacuation of members of the sports community stranded in Afghanistan, which implied speeding up negotiations with the governments of their respective countries to obtain humanitarian visas.

In December, Bach announced humanitarian aid of more than half a million dollars for athletes and coaches in Afghanistan, for which he anticipated the cooperation of the Qatar Olympic Committee and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which would be responsible for the distribution of these funds.

This decision came after the Taliban pledged to support the Olympic body’s donation during a meeting with the IOC in Doha facilitated by Qatar, whose Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has been a member of the IOC since 2002.

The Taliban, led by the new leadership of Afghanistan’s Directorate General of Physical Education and Sports, pledged to continue to allow their athletes and teams to compete internationally

“During the meeting, the Afghan representatives stated that they were firmly committed to following and observing the Olympic Charter,” the IOC said in a statement.

There was speculation of a likely presence of any Afghan competitors at the Beijing 2022 Games. In February 2020, the Afghan Olympic Committee had announced two skiers, Sajjad Husaini and Sayed Alishah Farhang, as its representatives. Both took refuge in Italy a few months ago.

“Both parties reiterated the fundamental right to access and practice sport safely for all persons without discrimination,” the IOC said. “Both parties consider the discussions to have been constructive and agreed to continue the dialogue.”

The IOC made clear it was maintaining its recognition of the National Olympic Committee elected before the arrival of the Taliban as it continues to monitor the situation. The date for further talks is not yet known.

Samira Asghari did not participate in that meeting in Doha as confirmed by an Olympic source to ATR. During this time, she has continued to publish reports denouncing what she considers to be “the grave humanitarian crisis” facing Afghan women.