Afghan karate champion Meena Asadi pounds the heavy bag as part of her training routine, but she fears female athletes in her homeland may have already lost their fight to compete now that the Taliban are back in power
Meena left Afghanistan when she was 12 and went to Pakistan, where she started karate training and later represented Afghanistan in the 2010 South Asian Games.
"I feel miserable. I lost my hope and the people of my country lost their hope, too," Meena told Reuters in a studio in Cisarua, a town south of Jakarta where she teaches karate to refugees who, like her, hope to resettle in a third country. With the Taliban back in Kabul, Meena is fearful of what that means for the progress made by her compatriots.
This week, taekwondo athlete Zakia Khudadadi had her dreams shattered of becoming Afghanistan's first female competitor at the Paralympic Games due to the turmoil in Kabul."Everything is finished for women athletes," said Meena, who was the sole female athlete representing Afghanistan at the 2012 South Asian Karate Championship, where she won two silver medals.
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