Paralympics 2024
Paralympics 2024: Zakia Khudadadi creates history, becomes 1st refugee team medallist
Competing in the women's 47kg category, the taekwondo fighter, who fled Afghanistan, won the bronze medal after beating Ekinci Nurcihan of Turkey.
Zakia Khudadadi celebrates after winning the Refugee Paralympic Team's first-ever medal at the Paralympics in Paris. (Photo credit: Paralympic Games)
Zakia Khudadadi created history on Thursday by becoming the first-ever Refugee Paralympic Team medallist at the Paralympics in Paris.
Competing in the women's 47kg category, the taekwondo fighter, who fled Afghanistan, won the bronze medal after beating Ekinci Nurcihan of Turkey.
Khudadadi, who represented Afghanistan at the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, burst into wild celebration as the buzzer sounded at the Grand Palais.
She threw her helmet and the mouthpiece into the air in joy.
“It was a surreal moment, my heart started racing when I realised I had won the bronze,” an emotional Khudadadi told the Paralympics website.
Born without a forearm, Khudadadi started taekwondo at 11 in a secret gym in Herat province of Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban staged a coup and reclaimed power in the strife-torn country in 2021, she was evacuated from Afghanistan after her desperate appeal on a video.
At the Tokyo Paralympics, she was allowed to compete under the Afghanistan flag despite being based in Paris. She was allowed to compete following a plea by the international community.
Now settled in Paris, her adopted home city, Khudadadi was allowed to compete at the Paralympics 2024 as a member of the Refugee Paralympic Team.
On Thursday, when she won the medal, the Grand Palais crowd cheered her on as if she were one of their own.
Khudadadi was presented with her medal by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi and Andrew Parsons, the president of the International Paralympic Committee.
Since leaving Afghanistan, the 25-year-old has been training at INSEP, France’s national institute of sport, in Paris, under the tutelage of French coach Haby Niare, a former taekwondo world champion.
“This medal means everything to me, I will never forget that day,” Khudadadi said. “I won because of the great support I got from the crowd.”
“Zakia has been magical. I don’t know how else to put it,” Niare beamed. “The training process has been challenging. She faced a lot of injuries and she had to learn a lot in a couple of years but she never lost sight of her goal.”
