25/07/2012 World Olympic Dreams

OK, one, two, three, go! Zubair's kite and that view, we can only be

in Kabul. Welcome to World Olympic Dreams from Afghanistan. Coming up

in this programme - the quest of this country's only Olympic

medallist to redefine Afghanistan. You can feel the power just coming

right up through here. It's just amazing. The incredible story of

double amputee Malik hoe Hamed -- Mohammed and the sport that changed

his life. 20 years of rowing, my legs are about that big. Check out

this - fi fingers don't meet. Plus, the athletes -- my fingers don't

meet. Plus, the athletes risking their lives for sport, the Afghan

women's team who play on in the face of death threats. This is

Afghanistan as you've never seen it before. Through the stories of

athletes who want to change how For as long as I can remember, the

very word Afghanistan conjures up images of conflict and warfare, but

I've been really keen to come here and especially to Kabul, to see for

myself if somewhere among all this there might be some sport. And the

most obvious place to start is with one man, who almost single handedly

has transformed the very idea of the Afghan athlete. Taekwondo

fighter, Rohullah Nikpai is without equal in Afghanistan. He is the

only Olympic medallist in the history of this country. His bronze

in the Beijing Olympics was a moment of national celebration, the

like of which Afghanistan has all too few of. I'm on my way to meet

him with my guide in Afghanistan, journalist and broadcaster, Tahir

Qadiry. How big a star is Rohullah Nikpai? He's a really big star and

champion in Afghanistan, because the thing is, the reason is, we

haven't got a lot of champions over the last three decades because of

war and he on the other hand, was the first to bring the Olympic

medal to Afghanistan in our history and it was the first-ever medal and

there is so much publicity on TV. He's doing ads for some of these

telecommunications companies and for safety and sanitary in the

country and the people mob him on the street and everybody knows him,

from children to elders, because he has been so much on TV. It's become

a cliche when Olympic athletes say winning a medal changes their lives,

but it was literally true for Rohullah Nikpai. He had a huge

reception, a new car and this fantastic new apartment from the

prds of Afghanistan no less. President of Afghanistan no less.

Welcome. His quality of life was transformed by Beijing, but for him

the medals he holds dear are worth so much more than the personal

wealth they have brought him. Winning medals is becoming a habit

for him. Last year, in the tae kwon do world championships in Korea he

consolidated his position as one of the best in his sport, with another

bronze medal. Proving he's -- his 2008 Olympic bronze wasn't just a

Nearly four years on from that medal me formance in Beijing and

Rohullah still uses this gym and it's the place where he started out

on the outskirts of Kabul. It's a domestic house that's been

converted and you can see it's not even the correct width for a proper

taekwondo mat. For sure, Rohullah will fight plenty of athletes in

London with better training facilities than these. But from

what I saw his competitors would be foolish to underestimate the man

from Kabul. Force and power. I can feel the power just coming right up

through here and the most worrying thing is you can't even - from the

moment his foot leaves the floor, you can't see it. Thank you. An

Olympic medal is always a turning point for any athlete. It's the

moment when years of hard work in private in places like this, become

a matter of mass pride and of public celebration. That's more

true of Rohullah than many Olympic athletes. For him, the private and

the public are the same thing. He believes that if he fights hard

enough as an individual his country might just be the better for it too.

One of the many remarkable things about Kabul is how normal things

here seem. At times you forget there's a war on. Like anywhere

else, many Afghans have jobs to do, people to meet, lives to live. But

equally, this being Afghanistan, there are reminders of this

country's recent past around every corner. Of all the weird sights,

this place is probably the pinnical. On a windy hill top right in the

middle of the city is almost an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It's a

quarter full and perched on the end is this diving platform. It's been

here for years and the truth is that the Taliban would bring their

victims here, march them up on to the board and either shoot them

there, or from the end of the pool and the bodies would fall into that

water. Hundreds of them apparently. It's really grim. Afghanistan still

has a long way to go before swimming pools represent sport,

rather than conjuring up dark memories. This empty, unused pool

is a depressing sign of that. But there are glimmers of hope too.

Meet the Afghanistan water polo team. The squad made up of farmers,

shopkeepers and soldiers is the brainchild of a US marine who is

hoping they can qualify for the 2016 Olympic Games. It's a tall

order, though. This is what they are up against. This is one of only

about a dozen swimming pools in the whole of Afghanistan. It's outside

though and in winter it's completely unusable and sport

politics being what it is, the swimmers train here. The water polo

players have to find somewhere else. When I catch up with them they're

training in an indoor pool as the guests of a local businessman. It's

a one-off, organised, we think, because we are filming. It's not

going according to plan. A couple of problems. There are no goals

that I can see and a bit of confusion down the other end,

because there's no water poll low ball, so someone has been sent to

buy one and hopefully we'll have some sport to watch in a minute or

two. Eventually a ball, albeit a football, turns up and training can

get under way. As sporting struggles go, it would take a lot

to beat the Afghan water polo team. There is no tradition of aquatic

sports in this land-locked country. Three of the team have been killed

in the war and the plan for a month's training in America is

being blocked because of fears that You can't help feeling it will be

well beyond 2016 before these players have a hope of holding

their own internationally. Even so, Rohullah Nikpai's Olympic medal in

2008 is proof enough to these players that it can be done. In

Afghanistan perhaps more than anywhere else in the world,

sporting dreams survive against overwhelming odds. The emergence of

waterpolo and other fledgling sports here reveals wider truths

about the struggle going on in Afghanistan. As a whole. Something

I'm keen to know more about from Tahir Qadiry. Just tell me what

sport means in Afghanistan at the moment. Well, sport means quite a

lot after the fall of the Taliban. The two great achievements

Afghanistan has, one was the freedom in press and then sport.

You saw an explosion of sports in Afghanistan and athletes coming

from the middle of nowhere really, like the cricket for example.

That's a great example. They came out of the ashes and then they

became like a global phenomenon. These athletes with very little

facilities, they try to express themselves and express their

identities through a different way. And to introduce a new image from

Afghanistan, other than the usual one, which is always associated

with war and drugs. Redefining what it means to be not just an Afghan,

but an Afghan athlete is also what is driving 18 -year-old Malik

Mohammed. I lost my legs by a landmine. The bomb was from the

Russian people. It was a minefield. I lost both of my legs and there

were two bombs. I came down and another one went off. Two in a row?

Yes. Those two bombs planted before he was even born changed Malik's

life unmathably. After injury and horror, came the realisation that

he was now part of a kind of underclass. In Afghanistan the

disabled are all too often regarded as invisible, or even worthless.

have one million disabled or paralysed like me in Afghanistan.

They are very poor families. They cannot do work or do anything in

Kabul city or wherever they are, so this is a big problem between

disabled and not. He was flown to the US for treatment. Several years

not just of American medical care, but also of education changed his

life again. He met former Presidents, made new friends and

discovered sport. He returned to Kabul not just as a track athlete,

but also as a swimmer, with a sense of self-worth, which might

otherwise have alluded him. What would your life be like without

sport? If I didn't do sport I would be a simple person and I would stay

at home and do nothing and watch only TV, so now I'm a sportsmen and

people call me an athlete and hero, It's amazing what sport can do for

people in Afghanistan in the days and months after Malik lost his

legs, the chances were he was going to become almost a pariah in Afghan

society. Now he's a hero for the whole country. This summer in

London, Malik hopes to represent Afghanistan in the 2012 Paralympic

Games. He'll be banishing some personal demons for sure. But if he

can change what it means to have a disability here, then perhaps the

biggest impact from his efforts in London will be felt back at home.

There are so many sporting stories to be told in Afghanistan. The lid

has been lifted here. Afghans are throwing themselves into all kinds

of sports. Not all the trends here are new though. There is one craze

in particular which, like cricket, went on during the Taliban but is

now booming like never before. Tell me about bodybuilding? Why is

that such a big sport in Afghanistan? Well, maybe you are

not to right person because I haven't got good muscles, but I

will answer you. You know, bodybuilding after the fall of the

Taliban, it's one of the favourite sports in Afghanistan like, I mean,

every Afghan, especially the youngsters you speak to, they go to

the gym. It's not a new thing? This hasn't happened in the last two or

three years, it's been generations? Yes, it's been going on for years

and years, even during the Taliban. They were asked to wear pants and

cover your legs and also some parts of your chest as well. But after

the Taliban, now they can show each part of the body. Let me tell you

one thing. When you go and propose a girl, one of the criterias is

having a good body in Afghanistan so you need to have a good muscle

to propose a good girl. To get a good woman? Xabgtsly.

-- exactly. If that's true, then these guys should have no trouble

This is lunch time in Kabul in one of many weightlifting gyms and

these bodybuilders have put on a show specifically for us, it has to

be said. I've been in plenty of gyms in my life, but I've never

seen anything like this. This gym is brand-new. It brings

the number in Kabul alone to around 200. The sport, if you can call it

that, isn't just about spending hours in gyms though.

All of these bodybuilders regularly compete in contests that take place

right across the country, culminating every year in the Mr

Afghanistan competition. Contestants are scored on different

parts of the body so knowing how to flex on demand is crucial.

So check this out, 20 years of rowing, my legs are, oh, about that

big. Check out this. Bicep. My fingers don't meet! Jabar Hotak

could have been the next Rohullah Nikpai. His first sport was tae

kwon do. Before too long, bodybuilding became his obsession

though. It's a passion which climaxed with him being crowned

many Afghanistan in 2009. Now, as a trainer, he's uniquely placed to

Where there are prizes, of course there is cheating.

Notably steroids. These bodybuilders all say they

rely on weight lifting alone to build up their muscle, but they

know plenty of people here willing to turn to chemicals to gain an

advantage. So why is this place called the

Bush Bazaar? Well, after the former President of the United States...

Tahir brought me to a market where steroids are for sale. When the

Taliban fell from power, people started setting up markets like

this one because most of you can find most of the American stuff

here where the soldiers don't consume them, then they bring them

here and preem just try to buy. we have obviously seen the

bodybuilders within they are looking for the supplements or

steroids, is this the right place to come? You have come to the right

place. Here you can get everything! Steroids, weight gainer. Is this

something people are worried about? The thing is, there is not so much

knowledge about this, not so much publicity. The recent report I

heard was a friend who died of using too much steroids, so that

was like a Big Bang, like that was a warning for all people. Doping is

certainly a very worrying part of this sport. Testing is still only

sporadic and while there remains a real chance of not being caught,

plenty of bodybuilders will continue to use.

There is more freedom than ever in sport in Afghanistan, but there are

many who'd argue in the world of bodybuilding at least, freedom to

participate and freedom to abuse should not be confused.

You are never too far from signs of conflict in Kabul. This was the gym

where we were just filming those bodybuilders and right next door,

that tall building is where the Taliban launched an attack from a

few months ago. That was on to the American Embassy a couple of blocks

that way. You can still see the bullet holes in the top of that

building where the Americans fired back.

Kabul is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. As a result,

moving around, you come across checkpoints every few hundred

metres. Stop check. Understandably, they

don't like being filmed. In Kabul, you're constantly aware

how dangerous things can be here. But equally, life in a high

security world can also become very normal very quickly.

We have been here two or three days, and you just get used to it. It's

worrying how you get used to it. You think to begin with, it's

completely a culture shock and now it's just normal. Armed guard, guy

comes to the window, say what you are doing, and then you can carry

on with life. Even though my main focus in

Afghanistan has been sport, you're constantly hit with the evidence of

the political side of this country's recent past.

This is the Ghazi Stadium. If you have seen pictures of this before,

they're unlikely to have been pleasant ones. It's here the

Taliban used to bring people in to execute them in front of the crowds

and even stone women to death. They stoned them to death out on

the pitch. Nowadays, there's progress, a lovely new Astro Turf

pitch and it's the hub of a whole sports complex which aims at

improving Afghan team sports. Among them, the Afghanistan women's

football team. Women's sport wasn't just

restricted under the Taliban, it was come plaitly banned.

The contrast between the present day and a mere 11 years ago is at

its starkest here. As recently as 2001, any of these

women could have been executed for what we are filming them doing

today. That's not to say that this is

uncontroversial even now. The role of women in Afghanistan is a battle

that is far from settled. Many of the players here have had

death threats. Each of the women on this pitch has their own story of

sacrifice to tell for the love of This is where progress in sport is

at its most delicate. Women's sport happens in Afghanistan, you could

say despite public attitudes, not because of them.

Even so, Sajir and the rest of her team-mates remain committed. The

team is beginning to play internationals overseas and home

matches have drawn surprising What happens with the women's

football team more than any of the other athletes I've encountered

will be a barometer of the biggest story here in Afghanistan.

In five or ten years' time, this team may well in longer exist, or

it may be if Sajia has anything to do with it, the Afghan women's

football team has gone from To round off our trip, you couldn't

get a more Afghan backdrop than the presidential palace which was

ruined in the fighting in the Civil War. But you never know with

Afghanistan. You could come back in six months' time and that could be

completely razed to the ground or reinvented as a Government building

or even some sort of luxury hotel, you just don't know. And when I

think back to the few days, it's been absolutely amazing to get

under the skin of the place and to really witness the truth about

Afghan sports. You think of Malik and Rahullah who're absolutely at

the cutting edge, they're an inspiration to the whole nation and

to generations of people coming up behind them and realising that it's

possible to go to the Olympics or Paralympics and win medals. Then

you think of the more rough and ready reality of Afghan sport, the

cricket that goes on in the streets and in the towns and then, you know,

the chaos of the Afghan Water Polo team. The only sign-off I think is

that there can be no definitives. You can't look at the country or

Kabul as a city or the political situation or indeed Afghan sport