Afghan women now living in Switzerland, Italy, France, Germany, Canada and Singapore, are on the start list for Sunday’s road race.
Among them will be Masomah Ali Zada (26), the first female Afghan cyclist to take part in the Olympic Games - as part of the refugee team created by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the Tokyo 2020 Games - who fled her country in 2017, under threat because she was cycling. In July this year, she was elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission.
The participants also include Wahida Hussaini, one of the athletes welcomed by the UCI World Cycling Centre (WCC) in Aigle, Switzerland, who finished 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.
Riders will compete on a course comprising two laps of a 28.5 km circuit with a 72 m difference in altitude (total: 57 km with a 144 m difference in altitude). The peloton will ride through the towns of Aigle, Yvorne, Rennaz and Vouvry, in the Chablais region of Vaud.
The race will start – at 9.30 am - and finish at the UCI World Cycling Centre (WCC), the UCI's high-level education and training centre located in Aigle.
Two separate titles will be awarded: one for the riders in the Elite category, and the other for those in the Under 23 category. However, all the participants will start simultaneously and cover the same distance.
UCI WCC Director Jacques Landry said all the young women competing in Aigle were being well looked after in their respective host countries: “Quite apart from being given the opportunity to safely practice the sport they love, they are being integrated into their new lives, learning the language, finding their own accommodation, 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 Aigle for their National Championships.”
The 2022 Women's Road Championships of Afghanistan are jointly organised by the UCI WCC, the Afghan Cycling Federation, the organising committee of the Tour du Pays de Vaud and the Commune of Aigle. The event is part of the continuing efforts of the UCI and its partners to support and assist the Afghan Cycling Federation, in line with the values of the Olympic Movement which promote peace and development through sport and strive to “place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."
In 2021, several evacuation operations were led either by the UCI or by its partners. A total of 165 Afghan citizens were able to leave their country, thanks to the support of different actors, which include NGO IsraAID, various governments, the Asian Cycling Confederation and particularly Sylvan Adams, owner of the UCI WorldTeam Israel-Premier Tech, whose financial contribution was an important factor in making these efforts possible.
Some of the young women that were evacuated describe their story in this moving video.
The evacuated Afghans settled in different countries now have the chance to reunite and celebrate their passion for cycling at the occasion of the Women's Road Championships of Afghanistan taking place in Aigle on Sunday 23 October.