{"id":34457,"date":"2021-07-27T14:30:24","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T05:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2021\/jul\/27\/were-so-proud-of-her-afghanistans-gutsy-female-cyclists-ready-to-cheer-on-masomah-ali-zada"},"modified":"2021-07-27T14:30:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T05:30:24","slug":"were-so-proud-of-her-afghanistans-gutsy-female-cyclists-ready-to-cheer-on-ali-zada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=34457","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019re so proud of her\u2019: Afghanistan\u2019s gutsy female cyclists ready to cheer on Ali Zada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Watching an Afghan refugee in the Olympics is a source of inspiration to many women in a country where riding a bike is seen as a political statement and the Taliban are gaining ground<\/p>\n<p>When Masomah Ali Zada makes her Olympic debut at the women\u2019s cycling time trial this week, speeding her way around the 22km route with Mount Fuji in the background, it won\u2019t just be her teammates in Japan cheering her on. In Kabul, where the 25-year-old joined the national squad as a teenager, a small but gutsy group of female cyclists will be glued to the television, willing her to do the best she can.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m really, really proud of her and so are all of the team members, and we are really looking forward to watching her race and seeing her do great,\u201d says Zahla Sarmat, assistant development director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afghancycling.com\/\">Afghan cycling federation<\/a>\u2019s women\u2019s division. For her and her fellow riders, Ali Zada is a source of huge inspiration, even if her sporting success eventually led her to leave Afghanistan and claim asylum in France. She is competing in Tokyo as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/olympics.com\/ioc\/refugee-olympic-team\">Refugee Olympic Team<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2021\/jul\/27\/were-so-proud-of-her-afghanistans-gutsy-female-cyclists-ready-to-cheer-on-masomah-ali-zada\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Watching an Afghan refugee in the Olympics is a source of inspiration to many women in a country where riding a bike is seen as a political statement and the Taliban are gaining groundWhen Masomah Ali Zada makes her Olympic debut at the women\u2019s cycling&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2266,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46,59,342,61,203,882,281,617,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-global-development","category-olympic-games","category-south-and-central-asia","category-sport","category-tokyo-olympic-games-2020","category-women","category-womens-rights-and-gender-equality","category-world-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2266"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34458,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34457\/revisions\/34458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}