Olympic history of Afghanistan

AFG

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The Afghanistan National Olympic Committee is the National Olympic Committee of Afghanistan . It was founded in 1935 and accepted by the International Olympic Committee the following year .

Afghanistan has been taking part in the Summer Olympics since 1936, and no athletes have been sent to the Winter Olympics. Young athletes have been sent to both of the youth summer games held so far.

Afghan athletes participated in the following sports: wrestling ( freestyle wrestling and Greco-Roman wrestling ), boxing , athletics , hockey , soccer , judo and taekwondo .

Participation

At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin 15 athletes were sent. 13 of them belonged to the Afghan hockey team, plus two track and field athletes. The hockey team took fifth place. One of the team members was Muhammad Asif, who at 17 is the youngest Afghan athlete to have competed in the Olympic Games. The first Afghan individual athlete was the 100-meter runner Mohammad Khan.

With a soccer and a hockey team, Afghanistan took part in the 1948 London Games. The soccer team failed with a 0: 6 in the qualifying round to Luxembourg, the hockey team reached seventh place. There were a total of 25 athletes in London, the largest Afghan contingent to date.

In 1952 they did not participate. In 1956 another hockey team took part in the Olympic tournament. The team was 11.

In 1960 , in addition to six athletes, Afghan wrestlers took part for the first time, all of whom competed in freestyle wrestling . Among them was Amir Jan Khalunder, a lightweight freestyle wrestler who, at 35, was Afghanistan's oldest athlete at the Olympic Games. In 1964 only wrestlers were posted. In addition to five freestyle wrestlers, three Greco-Roman-style athletes competed . The most successful participant was the freestyle wrestler Mohammad Ebrahimi, who reached fifth place in the featherweight division. In 1968 the competition was limited to freestyle wrestling, in which five athletes competed. Also in Munich 1972 only wrestlers took part, three in the Greco-Roman style and five freestyle wrestlers.

Afghanistan stayed away from the 1976 Montreal Games . In 1980 , eleven Afghan athletes competed in Moscow. In addition to eight wrestlers, boxers also took part in the Olympic Games for the first time. The 1984 Los Angeles Games were boycotted. Five freestyle wrestlers then started in Seoul in 1988 . In 1992 in Barcelona they did not participate.

Rohullah Nikpai, the first Afghan medalist, speaking in 2012

Two athletes started in Atlanta in 1996 . The marathon runner Abdul Baser Wasiqi started despite a thigh injury and hobbled to the finish line as 111th and last participant after 4:27:17 h. The other athlete, the 100-meter runner Abdul Ghafoor, was eliminated in the heats. A third participant was registered, the boxer Mohammad Jawid Aman, who was to start in the light middleweight division. Because he was late for the weigh-in, he was refused entry.

The IOC excluded Afghanistan in 1999, making participation in the Sydney 2000 Games impossible. The reasons for the exclusion were the civil war in Afghanistan and the small budget of US $ 30,000 of the NOK. Then there was the discrimination against women and the clothing regulations of the Taliban government . After the fall of the Taliban government, Afghanistan was re-admitted to the IOC in 2002.

In 2004 , five athletes started. The judoka Friba Razayee was the first Afghan woman to compete in the Olympic Games. Robina Muqimyar was the first female athlete in Afghanistan.

In 2008 in Beijing , four athletes took part, among them again Robina Muqimyar as the only woman. The 19-year-old Mahbooba Ahadgar was also supposed to start, but the 1,500-meter runner disappeared from the training camp in Formia, Italy, in early July 2008 . At first it was assumed that there was a kidnapping, but the young woman later called her mother by phone. Fearing to death that she had received death threats from Muslim extremists, she did not want to return. Afghan athletes took part in Taekwondo for the first time in Beijing . The flyweight Rohullah Nikpai won the bronze medal and became the first medalist in Afghanistan.

In 2012 Nikpai was able to win another bronze medal, this time in featherweight. Five other athletes, including a woman, took part in athletics, boxing and judo.

Afghanistan sent two young athletes to the first Youth Games in Singapore in 2010 . A track and field athlete and a boxer made up the Afghan team. In 2014 , a Taekwondo took part in Nanjing . In 2018 in Buenos Aires a track and field athlete, a boxer and a taekwondoin competed. In the heavyweight division, Taekwondoin Nisar Rahimzai won bronze, the first Afghan medal at youth games.

Afghanistan has not yet participated in the Youth Winter Games.

Overview of the participants

Summer games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports							Medals
	total	m	w												total	rank
1896-1932	not participated
1936	15th	15th	0		2	13
1948	25th	25th	0			14th	11
1952	not participated
1956	12	12	0			12
1960	12	12	0		5			7th
1964	8th	8th	0					8th
1968	5	5	0					5
1972	8th	8th	0	Ghulam Dastagir				8th
1976	not participated
1980	11	11	0					8th	3
1984	not participated
1988	5	5	0	Mohammad Razigul				5
1992	not participated
1996	2	2	0	Muhamed Aman	2
2000	not participated
2004	5	3	2	Nina Suratger	2			1	1	1
2008	4th	3	1	Nesar Bahawi	2						2			1	1	80
2012	6th	5	1	Nesar Bahawi	2				1	1	2			1	1	79
2016	3	2	1	Mohammad Tawfiq Bakhshi	2					1
total												0	0	2	2	138

Winter games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports	Medals
	total	m	w						total	rank
1924-2018	not participated
total						0	0	0	0	-

Youth Summer Games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports			Medals
	total	m	w								total	rank
2010	2	2	0	Ahmad Nawabi	1	1
2014	1	0	1	Farahnaz Yaqubi			1
2018	3	2	1	Nisar Ahmad Abdurahimzai	1	1	1			1	1	83
total								0	0	1	1	109

Youth Winter Games

year	Athletes			Flag bearer	sports	Medals
	total	m	w						total	rank
2012-2016	not participated
total						0	0	0	0	-

List of medal winners

→ Main article : List of Olympic medalists from Afghanistan

A bronze medal in Taekwondo was won at the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics .

Medals by sport

sport	gold	silver	bronze	total
Taekwondo	0	0	2	2
total	0	0	2	2

See also

• List of the flag bearers of the Afghan teams at the Olympic Games

Web link

• Afghanistan in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Afghanistan on Olympic.org  - The Official website of the Olympic movement (English)
• Web presence of the Afghan NOK

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Article by Reuters news agency on August 27, 2004
2. ↑ Article by Reuters news agency on August 17, 2000
3. ↑ Article in the Spiegel from July 14, 2008