Afghan Woman Elected As OIC Member

The International Olympic Committee has elected nine new members, including 24-year-old Samira Asghari, an Afghanistan women’s national basketball team player.

Asghari is the first Afghan to become a member of the committee.

She had been nominated by the committee in July this year with its president saying that the nomination sent a message.

“She’s a young woman of Afghanistan who is very active in promoting the right to play sport for women in Afghanistan, you all know it’s not an easy task,” Thomas Bach, the OIC president, had said.

“With this nomination, we wanted to send a signal not only to men and women in Afghanistan but also in all these countries where women are facing serious obstacles to do sport,” he had said.

Two more women among the newcomers are Daina Gudzineviciute of Lithuania, a shooting gold medalist at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, and former nurse Felicite Rwemarika of Rwanda.

Six men elected by fellow IOC members are Camilo Perez (Paraguay), Giovanni Malago (Italy), William Blick (Uganda), Prince Jigyel Ugyen Wangchuck (Bhutan), Morinari Watanabe (Japan) and Andrew Parsons (Brazil).

IOC members voted bobsled federation president Ivo Ferriani of Italy to their executive board representing winter sports.