BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The International Olympic Committee has elected nine new members including 24-year-old Samira Asghari, an Afghanistan women’s national basketball team player.
Afghanistan was ineligible to compete at the 2000 Sydney Games because its National Olympic Committee did not follow the Olympic Charter, most notably the Taliban prohibiting female athletes.
By Athens 2004, when Afghanistan returned to the Olympics, it entered female athletes for the first time. It sent one female athlete to each of the last three Summer Olympics, compared to 12 total male athletes among 2008, 2012 and 2016. Asghari is Afghanistan’s first IOC member, according to Olympic historians.