UCI hosts Afghan Women’s Championships in Switzerland
On Tuesday, the UCI announced that 49 female athletes will compete in the Afghanistan Women’s Road Championships, to be held on October 23 in Aigle, Switzerland. Afghan women, now residing in Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, Canada and Singapore, are on the starting list for Sunday’s road race.
In a statement, the UCI said among them will be Masomah Ali Zada, the first Afghan cyclist to compete in the Olympics – as part of the refugee team put together by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the Tokyo 2020 Games became. who fled her country in 2017 after being threatened for cycling. In July of this year she was elected to the IOC’s Athletes’ Commission.
Competitors also include Wahida Hussaini, one of the athletes received by the UCI World Cycling Center (WCC) in Aigle, Switzerland, who placed 11th in the individual time trial at this year’s Asian Cycling Championships in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Meanwhile, Italy-based sisters Fariba and Yulduz Hashimi, two of four Afghans now riding for UCI Women’s Continental Team Valcar – Travel & Service, recently competed in the inaugural UCI Gravel World Championships.
The plight of female cyclists after the fall of Afghanistan
The course is made up of laps of a 28.5km circuit, passing through the towns of Aigle, Yvorne, Rennaz and Vouvry in the Chablais region of Vaud.
Two separate titles are awarded: one for the drivers in the Elite category and the other for the drivers in the U-23 category. However, all participants start at the same time and cover the same distance.
UCI WCC director and former Canadian national team rider Jacques Landry said that all young women competing in Aigle would be well looked after in their respective host countries: “Not to mention giving them the opportunity to practice the sport they love safely , they are also being integrated into their new lives, learning the language, finding their own place to live and many are already working or studying,” he said. “The goal is to make them independent and self-sufficient. The UCI WCC is delighted to welcome them to their national championships in Aigle.”
In 2021, several evacuation operations were led by either the UCI or its partners. A total of 165 Afghan nationals were able to leave their country thanks to groups including the NGO IsraAID, various governments, the Asian Cycling Confederation and Sylvan Adams, the owner of the UCI WorldTeam Israel Start-Up Nation.
The Israel Start-Up Nation team owner organized a mission to rescue 167 Afghan nationals
The evacuee Afghans who have settled in different countries now have the opportunity to reunite and celebrate their passion for cycling at the Afghan Women’s Road Championships, which will be held in Aigle on Sunday 23 October.
Some of the young women who were evacuated share their stories in the moving video below.