:00:58. > :01:08.OK, one, two, three, go! Zubair's kite and that view, we can only be
:01:08. > :01:09.
:01:09. > :01:14.in Kabul. Welcome to World Olympic Dreams from Afghanistan. Coming up
:01:14. > :01:24.in this programme - the quest of this country's only Olympic
:01:24. > :01:24.
:01:24. > :01:33.medallist to redefine Afghanistan. You can feel the power just coming
:01:34. > :01:41.right up through here. It's just amazing. The incredible story of
:01:41. > :01:47.double amputee Malik hoe Hamed -- Mohammed and the sport that changed
:01:47. > :01:55.his life. 20 years of rowing, my legs are about that big. Check out
:01:55. > :02:01.this - fi fingers don't meet. Plus, the athletes -- my fingers don't
:02:01. > :02:04.meet. Plus, the athletes risking their lives for sport, the Afghan
:02:04. > :02:09.women's team who play on in the face of death threats. This is
:02:09. > :02:19.Afghanistan as you've never seen it before. Through the stories of
:02:19. > :02:47.
:02:47. > :02:51.athletes who want to change how For as long as I can remember, the
:02:51. > :02:57.very word Afghanistan conjures up images of conflict and warfare, but
:02:57. > :03:01.I've been really keen to come here and especially to Kabul, to see for
:03:01. > :03:07.myself if somewhere among all this there might be some sport. And the
:03:07. > :03:17.most obvious place to start is with one man, who almost single handedly
:03:17. > :03:17.
:03:17. > :03:22.has transformed the very idea of the Afghan athlete. Taekwondo
:03:23. > :03:29.fighter, Rohullah Nikpai is without equal in Afghanistan. He is the
:03:29. > :03:33.only Olympic medallist in the history of this country. His bronze
:03:33. > :03:43.in the Beijing Olympics was a moment of national celebration, the
:03:43. > :03:47.like of which Afghanistan has all too few of. I'm on my way to meet
:03:47. > :03:55.him with my guide in Afghanistan, journalist and broadcaster, Tahir
:03:55. > :03:58.Qadiry. How big a star is Rohullah Nikpai? He's a really big star and
:03:58. > :04:02.champion in Afghanistan, because the thing is, the reason is, we
:04:02. > :04:06.haven't got a lot of champions over the last three decades because of
:04:06. > :04:12.war and he on the other hand, was the first to bring the Olympic
:04:12. > :04:18.medal to Afghanistan in our history and it was the first-ever medal and
:04:18. > :04:21.there is so much publicity on TV. He's doing ads for some of these
:04:21. > :04:24.telecommunications companies and for safety and sanitary in the
:04:24. > :04:33.country and the people mob him on the street and everybody knows him,
:04:33. > :04:37.from children to elders, because he has been so much on TV. It's become
:04:37. > :04:41.a cliche when Olympic athletes say winning a medal changes their lives,
:04:41. > :04:46.but it was literally true for Rohullah Nikpai. He had a huge
:04:46. > :04:52.reception, a new car and this fantastic new apartment from the
:04:52. > :04:57.prds of Afghanistan no less. President of Afghanistan no less.
:04:57. > :05:00.Welcome. His quality of life was transformed by Beijing, but for him
:05:00. > :05:10.the medals he holds dear are worth so much more than the personal
:05:10. > :05:30.
:05:30. > :05:37.wealth they have brought him. Winning medals is becoming a habit
:05:37. > :05:41.for him. Last year, in the tae kwon do world championships in Korea he
:05:41. > :05:47.consolidated his position as one of the best in his sport, with another
:05:47. > :05:57.bronze medal. Proving he's -- his 2008 Olympic bronze wasn't just a
:05:57. > :06:17.
:06:17. > :06:21.Nearly four years on from that medal me formance in Beijing and
:06:21. > :06:25.Rohullah still uses this gym and it's the place where he started out
:06:25. > :06:32.on the outskirts of Kabul. It's a domestic house that's been
:06:32. > :06:40.converted and you can see it's not even the correct width for a proper
:06:40. > :06:45.taekwondo mat. For sure, Rohullah will fight plenty of athletes in
:06:45. > :06:51.London with better training facilities than these. But from
:06:51. > :06:57.what I saw his competitors would be foolish to underestimate the man
:06:57. > :07:04.from Kabul. Force and power. I can feel the power just coming right up
:07:04. > :07:11.through here and the most worrying thing is you can't even - from the
:07:11. > :07:16.moment his foot leaves the floor, you can't see it. Thank you. An
:07:16. > :07:22.Olympic medal is always a turning point for any athlete. It's the
:07:22. > :07:30.moment when years of hard work in private in places like this, become
:07:30. > :07:36.a matter of mass pride and of public celebration. That's more
:07:36. > :07:44.true of Rohullah than many Olympic athletes. For him, the private and
:07:44. > :07:54.the public are the same thing. He believes that if he fights hard
:07:54. > :07:55.
:07:55. > :08:00.enough as an individual his country might just be the better for it too.
:08:00. > :08:06.One of the many remarkable things about Kabul is how normal things
:08:06. > :08:14.here seem. At times you forget there's a war on. Like anywhere
:08:14. > :08:18.else, many Afghans have jobs to do, people to meet, lives to live. But
:08:18. > :08:24.equally, this being Afghanistan, there are reminders of this
:08:24. > :08:28.country's recent past around every corner. Of all the weird sights,
:08:28. > :08:34.this place is probably the pinnical. On a windy hill top right in the
:08:34. > :08:37.middle of the city is almost an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It's a
:08:37. > :08:42.quarter full and perched on the end is this diving platform. It's been
:08:42. > :08:46.here for years and the truth is that the Taliban would bring their
:08:46. > :08:49.victims here, march them up on to the board and either shoot them
:08:50. > :08:58.there, or from the end of the pool and the bodies would fall into that
:08:58. > :09:04.water. Hundreds of them apparently. It's really grim. Afghanistan still
:09:04. > :09:08.has a long way to go before swimming pools represent sport,
:09:08. > :09:18.rather than conjuring up dark memories. This empty, unused pool
:09:18. > :09:22.
:09:22. > :09:29.is a depressing sign of that. But there are glimmers of hope too.
:09:30. > :09:34.Meet the Afghanistan water polo team. The squad made up of farmers,
:09:34. > :09:39.shopkeepers and soldiers is the brainchild of a US marine who is
:09:39. > :09:48.hoping they can qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games. It's a tall
:09:48. > :09:52.order, though. This is what they are up against. This is one of only
:09:52. > :09:55.about a dozen swimming pools in the whole of Afghanistan. It's outside
:09:55. > :10:00.though and in winter it's completely unusable and sport
:10:00. > :10:04.politics being what it is, the swimmers train here. The water polo
:10:05. > :10:10.players have to find somewhere else. When I catch up with them they're
:10:10. > :10:14.training in an indoor pool as the guests of a local businessman. It's
:10:14. > :10:20.a one-off, organised, we think, because we are filming. It's not
:10:20. > :10:23.going according to plan. A couple of problems. There are no goals
:10:23. > :10:27.that I can see and a bit of confusion down the other end,
:10:27. > :10:31.because there's no water poll low ball, so someone has been sent to
:10:31. > :10:36.buy one and hopefully we'll have some sport to watch in a minute or
:10:36. > :10:43.two. Eventually a ball, albeit a football, turns up and training can
:10:43. > :10:49.get under way. As sporting struggles go, it would take a lot
:10:49. > :10:53.to beat the Afghan water polo team. There is no tradition of aquatic
:10:53. > :10:58.sports in this land-locked country. Three of the team have been killed
:10:58. > :11:08.in the war and the plan for a month's training in America is
:11:08. > :11:43.
:11:43. > :11:48.being blocked because of fears that You can't help feeling it will be
:11:48. > :11:55.well beyond 2016 before these players have a hope of holding
:11:55. > :12:01.their own internationally. Even so, Rohullah Nikpai's Olympic medal in
:12:01. > :12:06.2008 is proof enough to these players that it can be done. In
:12:06. > :12:16.Afghanistan perhaps more than anywhere else in the world,
:12:16. > :12:16.
:12:16. > :12:19.sporting dreams survive against overwhelming odds. The emergence of
:12:20. > :12:24.waterpolo and other fledgling sports here reveals wider truths
:12:24. > :12:30.about the struggle going on in Afghanistan. As a whole. Something
:12:30. > :12:33.I'm keen to know more about from Tahir Qadiry. Just tell me what
:12:33. > :12:38.sport means in Afghanistan at the moment. Well, sport means quite a
:12:38. > :12:43.lot after the fall of the Taliban. The two great achievements
:12:43. > :12:47.Afghanistan has, one was the freedom in press and then sport.
:12:48. > :12:51.You saw an explosion of sports in Afghanistan and athletes coming
:12:51. > :12:56.from the middle of nowhere really, like the cricket for example.
:12:56. > :13:01.That's a great example. They came out of the ashes and then they
:13:01. > :13:06.became like a global phenomenon. These athletes with very little
:13:06. > :13:11.facilities, they try to express themselves and express their
:13:11. > :13:14.identities through a different way. And to introduce a new image from
:13:14. > :13:21.Afghanistan, other than the usual one, which is always associated
:13:21. > :13:29.with war and drugs. Redefining what it means to be not just an Afghan,
:13:29. > :13:39.but an Afghan athlete is also what is driving 18 -year-old Malik
:13:39. > :13:49.Mohammed. I lost my legs by a landmine. The bomb was from the
:13:49. > :13:50.
:13:50. > :13:55.Russian people. It was a minefield. I lost both of my legs and there
:13:55. > :14:05.were two bombs. I came down and another one went off. Two in a row?
:14:05. > :14:08.Yes. Those two bombs planted before he was even born changed Malik's
:14:08. > :14:14.life unmathably. After injury and horror, came the realisation that
:14:14. > :14:23.he was now part of a kind of underclass. In Afghanistan the
:14:23. > :14:27.disabled are all too often regarded as invisible, or even worthless.
:14:27. > :14:33.have one million disabled or paralysed like me in Afghanistan.
:14:33. > :14:39.They are very poor families. They cannot do work or do anything in
:14:39. > :14:45.Kabul city or wherever they are, so this is a big problem between
:14:45. > :14:49.disabled and not. He was flown to the US for treatment. Several years
:14:49. > :14:55.not just of American medical care, but also of education changed his
:14:55. > :15:01.life again. He met former Presidents, made new friends and
:15:01. > :15:06.discovered sport. He returned to Kabul not just as a track athlete,
:15:06. > :15:12.but also as a swimmer, with a sense of self-worth, which might
:15:12. > :15:19.otherwise have alluded him. What would your life be like without
:15:19. > :15:24.sport? If I didn't do sport I would be a simple person and I would stay
:15:24. > :15:34.at home and do nothing and watch only TV, so now I'm a sportsmen and
:15:34. > :15:37.people call me an athlete and hero, It's amazing what sport can do for
:15:37. > :15:43.people in Afghanistan in the days and months after Malik lost his
:15:43. > :15:50.legs, the chances were he was going to become almost a pariah in Afghan
:15:50. > :15:56.society. Now he's a hero for the whole country. This summer in
:15:56. > :16:01.London, Malik hopes to represent Afghanistan in the 2012 Paralympic
:16:01. > :16:05.Games. He'll be banishing some personal demons for sure. But if he
:16:05. > :16:14.can change what it means to have a disability here, then perhaps the
:16:14. > :16:20.biggest impact from his efforts in London will be felt back at home.
:16:20. > :16:26.There are so many sporting stories to be told in Afghanistan. The lid
:16:26. > :16:32.has been lifted here. Afghans are throwing themselves into all kinds
:16:32. > :16:37.of sports. Not all the trends here are new though. There is one craze
:16:37. > :16:41.in particular which, like cricket, went on during the Taliban but is
:16:41. > :16:45.now booming like never before. Tell me about bodybuilding? Why is
:16:45. > :16:48.that such a big sport in Afghanistan? Well, maybe you are
:16:48. > :16:51.not to right person because I haven't got good muscles, but I
:16:51. > :16:57.will answer you. You know, bodybuilding after the fall of the
:16:57. > :17:01.Taliban, it's one of the favourite sports in Afghanistan like, I mean,
:17:01. > :17:05.every Afghan, especially the youngsters you speak to, they go to
:17:05. > :17:09.the gym. It's not a new thing? This hasn't happened in the last two or
:17:09. > :17:12.three years, it's been generations? Yes, it's been going on for years
:17:12. > :17:16.and years, even during the Taliban. They were asked to wear pants and
:17:17. > :17:21.cover your legs and also some parts of your chest as well. But after
:17:21. > :17:25.the Taliban, now they can show each part of the body. Let me tell you
:17:25. > :17:28.one thing. When you go and propose a girl, one of the criterias is
:17:29. > :17:34.having a good body in Afghanistan so you need to have a good muscle
:17:34. > :17:39.to propose a good girl. To get a good woman? Xabgtsly.
:17:39. > :17:49.-- exactly. If that's true, then these guys should have no trouble
:17:49. > :17:54.
:17:54. > :17:58.This is lunch time in Kabul in one of many weightlifting gyms and
:17:58. > :18:01.these bodybuilders have put on a show specifically for us, it has to
:18:02. > :18:07.be said. I've been in plenty of gyms in my life, but I've never
:18:07. > :18:12.seen anything like this. This gym is brand-new. It brings
:18:12. > :18:17.the number in Kabul alone to around 200. The sport, if you can call it
:18:17. > :18:22.that, isn't just about spending hours in gyms though.
:18:22. > :18:28.All of these bodybuilders regularly compete in contests that take place
:18:29. > :18:31.right across the country, culminating every year in the Mr
:18:31. > :18:36.Afghanistan competition. Contestants are scored on different
:18:36. > :18:42.parts of the body so knowing how to flex on demand is crucial.
:18:42. > :18:49.So check this out, 20 years of rowing, my legs are, oh, about that
:18:49. > :18:57.big. Check out this. Bicep. My fingers don't meet! Jabar Hotak
:18:57. > :19:01.could have been the next Rohullah Nikpai. His first sport was tae
:19:01. > :19:05.kwon do. Before too long, bodybuilding became his obsession
:19:05. > :19:09.though. It's a passion which climaxed with him being crowned
:19:09. > :19:19.many Afghanistan in 2009. Now, as a trainer, he's uniquely placed to
:19:19. > :19:35.
:19:35. > :19:39.Where there are prizes, of course there is cheating.
:19:39. > :19:43.Notably steroids. These bodybuilders all say they
:19:43. > :19:47.rely on weight lifting alone to build up their muscle, but they
:19:47. > :19:50.know plenty of people here willing to turn to chemicals to gain an
:19:50. > :19:54.advantage. So why is this place called the
:19:54. > :19:58.Bush Bazaar? Well, after the former President of the United States...
:19:58. > :20:01.Tahir brought me to a market where steroids are for sale. When the
:20:01. > :20:06.Taliban fell from power, people started setting up markets like
:20:06. > :20:09.this one because most of you can find most of the American stuff
:20:09. > :20:14.here where the soldiers don't consume them, then they bring them
:20:14. > :20:17.here and preem just try to buy. we have obviously seen the
:20:17. > :20:21.bodybuilders within they are looking for the supplements or
:20:21. > :20:28.steroids, is this the right place to come? You have come to the right
:20:28. > :20:32.place. Here you can get everything! Steroids, weight gainer. Is this
:20:32. > :20:37.something people are worried about? The thing is, there is not so much
:20:37. > :20:41.knowledge about this, not so much publicity. The recent report I
:20:41. > :20:46.heard was a friend who died of using too much steroids, so that
:20:46. > :20:52.was like a Big Bang, like that was a warning for all people. Doping is
:20:52. > :20:56.certainly a very worrying part of this sport. Testing is still only
:20:56. > :21:01.sporadic and while there remains a real chance of not being caught,
:21:01. > :21:06.plenty of bodybuilders will continue to use.
:21:06. > :21:12.There is more freedom than ever in sport in Afghanistan, but there are
:21:12. > :21:17.many who'd argue in the world of bodybuilding at least, freedom to
:21:17. > :21:22.participate and freedom to abuse should not be confused.
:21:22. > :21:26.You are never too far from signs of conflict in Kabul. This was the gym
:21:26. > :21:29.where we were just filming those bodybuilders and right next door,
:21:30. > :21:34.that tall building is where the Taliban launched an attack from a
:21:34. > :21:37.few months ago. That was on to the American Embassy a couple of blocks
:21:37. > :21:40.that way. You can still see the bullet holes in the top of that
:21:40. > :21:46.building where the Americans fired back.
:21:46. > :21:50.Kabul is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. As a result,
:21:50. > :21:55.moving around, you come across checkpoints every few hundred
:21:55. > :22:03.metres. Stop check. Understandably, they
:22:03. > :22:07.don't like being filmed. In Kabul, you're constantly aware
:22:07. > :22:12.how dangerous things can be here. But equally, life in a high
:22:12. > :22:16.security world can also become very normal very quickly.
:22:16. > :22:21.We have been here two or three days, and you just get used to it. It's
:22:21. > :22:24.worrying how you get used to it. You think to begin with, it's
:22:24. > :22:29.completely a culture shock and now it's just normal. Armed guard, guy
:22:29. > :22:35.comes to the window, say what you are doing, and then you can carry
:22:35. > :22:38.on with life. Even though my main focus in
:22:38. > :22:43.Afghanistan has been sport, you're constantly hit with the evidence of
:22:44. > :22:48.the political side of this country's recent past.
:22:48. > :22:51.This is the Ghazi Stadium. If you have seen pictures of this before,
:22:51. > :22:54.they're unlikely to have been pleasant ones. It's here the
:22:54. > :22:59.Taliban used to bring people in to execute them in front of the crowds
:22:59. > :23:04.and even stone women to death. They stoned them to death out on
:23:04. > :23:09.the pitch. Nowadays, there's progress, a lovely new Astro Turf
:23:09. > :23:15.pitch and it's the hub of a whole sports complex which aims at
:23:15. > :23:20.improving Afghan team sports. Among them, the Afghanistan women's
:23:20. > :23:28.football team. Women's sport wasn't just
:23:28. > :23:34.restricted under the Taliban, it was come plaitly banned.
:23:34. > :23:39.The contrast between the present day and a mere 11 years ago is at
:23:39. > :23:44.its starkest here. As recently as 2001, any of these
:23:44. > :23:49.women could have been executed for what we are filming them doing
:23:49. > :23:53.today. That's not to say that this is
:23:54. > :23:58.uncontroversial even now. The role of women in Afghanistan is a battle
:23:58. > :24:03.that is far from settled. Many of the players here have had
:24:03. > :24:13.death threats. Each of the women on this pitch has their own story of
:24:13. > :24:34.
:24:34. > :24:40.sacrifice to tell for the love of This is where progress in sport is
:24:40. > :24:45.at its most delicate. Women's sport happens in Afghanistan, you could
:24:45. > :24:50.say despite public attitudes, not because of them.
:24:50. > :24:54.Even so, Sajir and the rest of her team-mates remain committed. The
:24:54. > :25:04.team is beginning to play internationals overseas and home
:25:04. > :25:32.
:25:32. > :25:36.matches have drawn surprising What happens with the women's
:25:36. > :25:40.football team more than any of the other athletes I've encountered
:25:40. > :25:47.will be a barometer of the biggest story here in Afghanistan.
:25:47. > :25:53.In five or ten years' time, this team may well in longer exist, or
:25:53. > :26:03.it may be if Sajia has anything to do with it, the Afghan women's
:26:03. > :26:04.
:26:04. > :26:06.football team has gone from To round off our trip, you couldn't
:26:06. > :26:11.get a more Afghan backdrop than the presidential palace which was
:26:11. > :26:16.ruined in the fighting in the Civil War. But you never know with
:26:16. > :26:19.Afghanistan. You could come back in six months' time and that could be
:26:19. > :26:23.completely razed to the ground or reinvented as a Government building
:26:23. > :26:26.or even some sort of luxury hotel, you just don't know. And when I
:26:26. > :26:32.think back to the few days, it's been absolutely amazing to get
:26:32. > :26:36.under the skin of the place and to really witness the truth about
:26:36. > :26:39.Afghan sports. You think of Malik and Rahullah who're absolutely at
:26:39. > :26:44.the cutting edge, they're an inspiration to the whole nation and
:26:44. > :26:48.to generations of people coming up behind them and realising that it's
:26:48. > :26:52.possible to go to the Olympics or Paralympics and win medals. Then
:26:52. > :26:58.you think of the more rough and ready reality of Afghan sport, the
:26:58. > :27:04.cricket that goes on in the streets and in the towns and then, you know,
:27:04. > :27:07.the chaos of the Afghan Water Polo team. The only sign-off I think is
:27:07. > :27:11.that there can be no definitives. You can't look at the country or
:27:11. > :27:18.Kabul as a city or the political situation or indeed Afghan sport