WUNRN
Woman
Sprinter Is Iraq's Only Female Athlete At Beijing Olympics
Brave
Woman Sprinter Leads Iraqi Olympics Charge
March
26, 2008
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By Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi sprinter Dana
Abdul-Razzaq has dodged bullets to pursue her love of running, her determination
to succeed pushing her to become Iraq's only female athlete at the Beijing
Olympics.
Few athletes will have faced the obstacles
21-year-old Abdul-Razzaq has overcome to reach Beijing, from a sniper's bullets
to a paucity of adequate training facilities and religious and cultural
opposition to female athletes.
"I love running, I have the persistence
to keep practicing and I have ambition despite all the problems that I
face," she told Reuters at Baghdad's crumbling Shaab stadium.
Last October, Abdul-Razzaq was training with
coach Yousif Abdul-Rahman at central Baghdad's Jadriya oval track before the
Arab Games when a sniper opened fire nearby.
"She was dodging the bullets like in
action movies," Abdul-Rahman recalled.
"She ducked to miss a bullet which hit a
tree."
Abdul-Razzaq's memories of the incident are
slightly less heroic. "After it was over, I fainted," she said.
"I was back practicing half an hour
later, but we used the other side of the playing field," she said.
Another time, gunmen opened fire as the pair
drove home from training through Saidiya, one of southern Baghdad's most
dangerous districts.
"My coach told me to lie down and he
drove at very high speed," Abdul-Razzaq said. "I was crying but I
survived, thank God. I didn't tell my parents about it."
Such violence has become a part of everyday
life for Iraqis, with tens of thousands killed in an insurgency and sectarian
violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Muslims since the
U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein five years ago.
Having survived the gunmen's bullets,
Abdul-Razzaq went on to set a new Iraqi record for the 200 meters, running a
time of 24.80 seconds at the Arab Games in Cairo last November to lower the
previous mark by almost 0.3 of a second. She came fourth in the race overall.
Her efforts have been rewarded with a ticket
to Beijing, courtesy of one of five "wild card" entries given to Iraq
by the International Olympic Committee, saving her the trouble of direct
qualification.
She will compete in the 100 meters and 200
meters events, a dream come true after only taking up running six years ago
when she was in secondary school. She has since won more than a dozen medals at
Arab and west Asian competitions.
"I am very happy because I feel that the
fruit of all my hard work is the Olympics," she said.
MODEST
Last year, the Iraqi Olympic Committee said
104 athletes, coaches, administrators and referees had been killed since 2003.
The number of missing Olympic officials stood at 22, including the then head of
the Olympic Committee who was kidnapped with several others in July 2006. Their
fate is still unknown.
Iraq's Olympics contingent has not yet been
finalized but the field and track union are sending Abdul-Razzaq and another athlete
after receiving two wild cards.
Abdul-Razzaq trains twice a day, six days a
week, each session lasting three or four hours. The facilities are basic, to
say the least.
Dressed modestly in a black-and-white
tracksuit, she begins each session with stretches and limbers up with a light
jog under the watchful eye of coach Abdul-Rahman.
Water seeps over the edge of the running
track at the pre-Saddam Hussein Shaab stadium as her fiance -- who asked not to
be identified -- runs by her side. Bare flagpoles and cracked concrete stands
ring the field as other would-be Olympians do sprint training.
"It is the only stadium that is suitable
for practicing, it is better than nothing," said Abdul-Razzaq.
Facilities at the Jadriya field are even
worse, the surface ruined by U.S. Humvee military vehicles during the invasion.
Abdul-Razzaq will go to Beijing with nothing
like the support other athletes receive from their legion of doctors,
nutritionists, masseuses and other specialists provided by national sporting
federations.
"I'm supposed to have a masseuse, I
suffer from muscle spasms every day," she said.
"I should have a doctor do a specific
nutrition programme. I feel dizzy right now because my training is so hard and
I do not follow a specific diet."
There are no gyms made available to her by
Iraqi athletic authorities, so she often pays her own way into public gyms for
the strength training she needs.
"From all sides, I am restricted,"
she says.
She been offered training programmes outside
Iraq but has turned them down because her athletics union would not allow her
coach to accompany her. However, they hope to be able to travel and train
together before the Olympics begin in August.
Her family encourages her to keep going --
her father was a former national cyclist and her brother is a bodybuilder --
but there are many in religiously conservative Iraq who think she should not
compete.
"There are people who encourage the
sport but there are traditions and conventions which say it is difficult for a
girl to travel and run, she should stay at home," Abdul-Razzaq said.
"But I am not doing something wrong or
haram (forbidden for Muslims)."
Coach Abdul-Rahman is with her every step of
the way, helping her overcome the dangers and difficulties of being an athlete
in Iraq.
"I cannot say she will win a medal in
the Olympics, it is difficult, but at least we are developing ourselves,"
he said.
"We might get close to the others, or
break the Iraqi record. This would be considered an achievement."
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