Athletes selected by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan will compete at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games alongside those who fled the Taliban.
"The Taliban regime is sending more than 130 male athletes in 17 sports, including volleyball, judo and wrestling," the Associated Press reported on Nov. 23 (KST), adding that the exile team includes 17 women.
However, according to MyInfo, a site covering the Games, Afghanistan's contingent totaled 104 athletes, including 15 women.
Afghanistan has been devoid of many organizations since the Taliban, a hardline Sunni Islamist militant group, returned to power in 2021.
The Afghanistan Olympic Committee, which sends athletes to international competitions such as the Olympics and Asian Games, has also undergone changes.
The former head of the Afghan Olympic Committee, Afizullah Rahimi, fled the country, and many athletes crossed the border.
In particular, female athletes, who were banned from sports due to the Taliban regime's repression, fled the country.
In the midst of this, the Taliban regime selected an all-male national team to compete in the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Athletes who had fled the country in opposition to the Taliban regime also formed their own squad, led by Rahimi.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) reportedly provided funding for their participation in the Asian Games.
They will arrive in Hangzhou individually in time for their events.
"Many countries still recognize Rahimi as the head of the Afghanistan Olympic Committee," the Associated Press reported.
"The women's volleyball team trained in Iran, the women's cycling team (two) from Italy and the women's track and field team trained in Australia," Rahimi said at the Afghanistan induction ceremony at the Hangzhou Athletes' Village in China's Zhejiang Province on Feb. 22.
"We want politics and sports to be separated," he said, adding, "We want our athletes to be free to practice sports inside and outside their country."
The Taliban have practiced harsh repressive politics since taking over Afghanistan in August 2021, when U.S. and NATO forces withdrew, banning women from public spaces, secondary education, and restricting employment.
There will be no Refugee Olympic Team at the Games.
Since the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the IOC has created an independent team for refugees displaced by civil war to compete in the Olympics, but no refugee team has ever competed at the Asian Games.
This time, however, there will be an independent team.
The team, called "Independent Athletes Competing Under the OCA Flag," consists of 12 male athletes from Sri Lanka and will compete in a seven-a-side rugby match.
The OCA was able to accommodate them in an independent team format after the Sri Lanka Rugby Union was suspended and they were unable to compete for their country. The team is different from the refugee team. 먹튀검증