Woman with One Arm Who Escaped Taliban Wins Bronze in Taekwondo at Paralympics

“It was a surreal moment, my heart started racing,” 25-year-old Zakia Khudadadi said of the moment she “threw her helmet and mouthpiece into the air” after defeating Turkey’s Ekinci Nurcihan in the women’s taekwondo competition Thursday in Paris, at the 2024 Paralympic Games.

Fox News reported that Khudadadi was “smuggled” out of Afghanistan during the end days of the deadly 2021 withdrawal, which killed 13 U.S. troops, to Paris and then to Tokyo in time to compete in the Tokyo Paralympic Games, held August 24-September 5, 2021. She was concerned that a Taliban takeover of her home country likely meant that restrictions on women would prevent her from competing in the sport she loves.

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The Aghan native, who was born without a forearm, did not return to her home country. Instead Khudadadi  joined the Refugee Paralympic Team, which this year at the 2024 Paris games is comprised of eight athletes and one guide runner “representing more than 120 million forcibly displaced people worldwide” the team website explains.

“’I was told that, if I stayed, the Taliban would come and take me because I was a female athlete disobeying their rules. … I had only one choice — to leave,’ she said ahead of the Paris Games.” CNN reported.

The Taliban, who celebrated the three-year anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan on August 14 with a huge military victory parade, announced on August 22 their new “Vice and Virtue” law, which forces women to cover their bodies entirely including the face, speak softly, and not leave the house unless with a legal male guardian in accordance with Sharia Law.

The newest restrictions toward Afghan women contradict assurances from Taliban leadership during the 2021 takeover of inclusivity for its people. “We will do our most to make sure that everybody is included in the country, even those people against us in the past, so we are going to wait until those announcements are made,” top spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in the days following the fall of Kabul.

However, Khudadadi and her fellow athletes offer hope for the future of persecuted people. “I went through so much to get here,” she said. “This medal is for all the women of Afghanistan and all the refugees of the world. I hope that one day there will be peace in my country.”

Khudadadi plans to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympics.